8 ms·

Europeans and americans may have diverging patterns of living, but sleeping in suburban areas and working in city centres isn't one of those patterns, as it's b

Europeans and americans may have diverging patterns of living, but sleeping in suburban areas and working in city centres isn't one of those patterns, as it's becoming the norm everywhere...

flexie 12y ago
Few or no European suburbs are as vast as your American suburbs (think Houston, Atlanta or the Bay area). In my home country (Denmark) young families now tend to stay in city centers rather than moving to suburbs so the trend is reverse. Also, European cities generally have much better public transportation such as really decent busses, trolley busses, light rails, subways, trains, and trams. Finally, I suspect a mile driven by 30-60 year olds are generally safer than a mile driven by teenagers. Europe has older population and few teenage drivers.
- spdustin 12y ago
  Living in the Chicago area for most of my adult life, but visiting Houston frequently, I find myself longing for the long access roads / frontage roads that are prevalent around the Houston loop. It's a nice buffer between long-haul highways and shorter-haul-but-not-quite-local roads.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  There are certainly Europeans that engage in long commutes. In the UK, many people who work in London commute from outside, sometimes multiple hours each way, but you're right, public transport is widely used, those aforementioned London commuters tend to rely on trains. Perhaps London is a special case because it's so expensive to live there, but in general it's easy to get around the country on trains.
pash 12y ago
There is a big difference in commuting patterns, which is the difference I noted. Even comparing only suburbanite Americans to suburbanite Europeans, the Americans are likelier to drive, and when they drive, they drive farther and faster. See, e.g., a study comparing commuting habits of American workers with their British and Irish counterparts [0]. Aside from the more well known differences, the study points out that the average commuting speed is over 45mph in the United States compared to under 30mph in Ireland. Typical European cities and suburbs are not like typical American cities and suburbs. 0. http://abstracts.aetransport.org/paper/download/id/4040 http://abstracts.aetransport.org/paper/download/id/4040 [PDF]
- darklajid 12y ago
  I commented elsewhere in this thread: Americans drive .. faster? So I commuted (I tend to work from home) today, 31th of December, about 90km to the office of my company. Vmax was 200km/h. Tires are cleared up to 210, car can go ~230, but the weather wasn't nice and it's winter. I don't think that you can bring up 'fast driving' on the US side of things, if you want to compare yourself to Europe. What am I missing? France allows 130km/h. What's the limit (or what's the average speed over the limit, if you refer to that) for you?
  - spdustin 12y ago
    On most major highways near cities, it's 55 mi/h / 88 km/h. Average speed of experienced drivers in light traffic would be about 15% higher.
    - darklajid 12y ago
      Thanks. I always fail to understand the word 'highways'[1]. I _think_ Autobahn, and compare it with that in my post. Sweden, according to the infallible Wikipedia, seems to have a speed limit on their version of the highway/Autobahn of 110km/h, in exceptional cases 120km/h. So I still think the GP is wrong, at least in terms of 'driving faster'. 1: I'm unsure what constitutes a highway, what is the difference (if there's any) to an interstate and .. what you'd call the 'normal' roads between cities.
      - aggieben 12y ago
        Interstate highways were built as a system of highways with no stops to anywhere in the country. I think in theory they are maintained by the federal government, but in practice, the feds give money to the states because the states each have agencies that deal with roadbuilding contracts etc. I think in contemporary usage, "freeway" and "highway" mostly mean the same thing: no stops.
      - spdustin 12y ago
        Autobahn = interstate highway. There are different kinds of highways here: interstate (numbered highways that cross state lines, with the exception of I-4, which is entirely within Florida), state, county, and municipal. The concept is the same throughout: a highway differs from other roads (sometimes we call those "surface streets") in that it has controlled or limited access and is "maintained" by a government agency of some kind. They're intended for non-local travel, just like the Autobahn and the other federal/state motorways. I drove on the Autobahn once (A13) going from Berlin to Dresden when teaching a class there. I remember distinctly feeling that it was all familiar to me. Just like an interstate highway here in the US, only the drivers around me generally seemed like they were attentive to their driving. :) I'd guess the German equivalent to our other highways would be Bundesstraßen and Landesstraßen?
jarek 12y ago
I'm currently in Kraków. Only really crap suburb osiedla don't have a tram or a major bus loop for heading into city centre...
- expr_ 12y ago
  (I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but) City centre is not the only location to which one may be heading. I live in the capital of my country, and I save three quarters of an hour of my daily commute with a car – and I hear people saying the capital is the only place where public transport really ”works”.
aragot 12y ago
When talking about climate change, Jean Marc Jancovici (our local Al Gore) never fails to mention urban architecture takes time to reorganize. Given your petrol is so cheap (low tax and high foreign... let's not say it), US builds cities accordingly. In France, taxes more than double the petrol price [1], so you only see suburban designs in very rich places (namely, Sophia-Antipolis). Those areas where cars are mandatory are not kind to lower-income people, and the voting is accordingly very right-wing. So the first step we should take for climate change is to organize our cities so that public transport is useful, where we can walk to work. In this matter, US has no chance of improving if they keep low taxes per gallon. [1] http://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/fiche-pedagogique/structuration-des-prix-de-l-essence-et-du-gazole-france http://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/fiche-pedagogique/str... (French, with charts)

Europeans and americans may have diverging patterns of living, but sleeping in suburban areas and working in city centres isn't one of those patterns, as it's becoming the norm everywhere...

flexie 12y ago

Few or no European suburbs are as vast as your American suburbs (think Houston, Atlanta or the Bay area). In my home country (Denmark) young families now tend to stay in city centers rather than moving to suburbs so the trend is reverse. Also, European cities generally have much better public transportation such as really decent busses, trolley busses, light rails, subways, trains, and trams. Finally, I suspect a mile driven by 30-60 year olds are generally safer than a mile driven by teenagers. Europe has older population and few teenage drivers.

spdustin 12y ago
Living in the Chicago area for most of my adult life, but visiting Houston frequently, I find myself longing for the long access roads / frontage roads that are prevalent around the Houston loop. It's a nice buffer between long-haul highways and shorter-haul-but-not-quite-local roads.
ZenoArrow 12y ago
There are certainly Europeans that engage in long commutes. In the UK, many people who work in London commute from outside, sometimes multiple hours each way, but you're right, public transport is widely used, those aforementioned London commuters tend to rely on trains. Perhaps London is a special case because it's so expensive to live there, but in general it's easy to get around the country on trains.

pash 12y ago

There is a big difference in commuting patterns, which is the difference I noted. Even comparing only suburbanite Americans to suburbanite Europeans, the Americans are likelier to drive, and when they drive, they drive farther and faster. See, e.g., a study comparing commuting habits of American workers with their British and Irish counterparts [0]. Aside from the more well known differences, the study points out that the average commuting speed is over 45mph in the United States compared to under 30mph in Ireland. Typical European cities and suburbs are not like typical American cities and suburbs. 0. http://abstracts.aetransport.org/paper/download/id/4040 http://abstracts.aetransport.org/paper/download/id/4040 [PDF]

darklajid 12y ago
I commented elsewhere in this thread: Americans drive .. faster? So I commuted (I tend to work from home) today, 31th of December, about 90km to the office of my company. Vmax was 200km/h. Tires are cleared up to 210, car can go ~230, but the weather wasn't nice and it's winter. I don't think that you can bring up 'fast driving' on the US side of things, if you want to compare yourself to Europe. What am I missing? France allows 130km/h. What's the limit (or what's the average speed over the limit, if you refer to that) for you?
- spdustin 12y ago
  On most major highways near cities, it's 55 mi/h / 88 km/h. Average speed of experienced drivers in light traffic would be about 15% higher.
  - darklajid 12y ago
    Thanks. I always fail to understand the word 'highways'[1]. I _think_ Autobahn, and compare it with that in my post. Sweden, according to the infallible Wikipedia, seems to have a speed limit on their version of the highway/Autobahn of 110km/h, in exceptional cases 120km/h. So I still think the GP is wrong, at least in terms of 'driving faster'. 1: I'm unsure what constitutes a highway, what is the difference (if there's any) to an interstate and .. what you'd call the 'normal' roads between cities.
    - aggieben 12y ago
      Interstate highways were built as a system of highways with no stops to anywhere in the country. I think in theory they are maintained by the federal government, but in practice, the feds give money to the states because the states each have agencies that deal with roadbuilding contracts etc. I think in contemporary usage, "freeway" and "highway" mostly mean the same thing: no stops.
    - spdustin 12y ago
      Autobahn = interstate highway. There are different kinds of highways here: interstate (numbered highways that cross state lines, with the exception of I-4, which is entirely within Florida), state, county, and municipal. The concept is the same throughout: a highway differs from other roads (sometimes we call those "surface streets") in that it has controlled or limited access and is "maintained" by a government agency of some kind. They're intended for non-local travel, just like the Autobahn and the other federal/state motorways. I drove on the Autobahn once (A13) going from Berlin to Dresden when teaching a class there. I remember distinctly feeling that it was all familiar to me. Just like an interstate highway here in the US, only the drivers around me generally seemed like they were attentive to their driving. :) I'd guess the German equivalent to our other highways would be Bundesstraßen and Landesstraßen?

jarek 12y ago

I'm currently in Kraków. Only really crap suburb osiedla don't have a tram or a major bus loop for heading into city centre...

expr_ 12y ago
(I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but) City centre is not the only location to which one may be heading. I live in the capital of my country, and I save three quarters of an hour of my daily commute with a car – and I hear people saying the capital is the only place where public transport really ”works”.

aragot 12y ago

When talking about climate change, Jean Marc Jancovici (our local Al Gore) never fails to mention urban architecture takes time to reorganize. Given your petrol is so cheap (low tax and high foreign... let's not say it), US builds cities accordingly. In France, taxes more than double the petrol price [1], so you only see suburban designs in very rich places (namely, Sophia-Antipolis). Those areas where cars are mandatory are not kind to lower-income people, and the voting is accordingly very right-wing. So the first step we should take for climate change is to organize our cities so that public transport is useful, where we can walk to work. In this matter, US has no chance of improving if they keep low taxes per gallon. [1] http://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/fiche-pedagogique/structuration-des-prix-de-l-essence-et-du-gazole-france http://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/fiche-pedagogique/str... (French, with charts)