Comment by Agustus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Agustus | Hacker News Reader

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Those who are able to afford to live in affluent areas have high income jobs and can purchase the land surrounding their workplace, enabling non motorized conveyance or transit. The low and middle class, are forced out of the area, however these middle to low income jobs still exist and they need to be accomplished; think how far out a janitor is pushed away from a high income residence area before they can afford a place. An example of this is San Francisco's suburb expansion with the streetcar's development. As the streetcar line expanded, the lower income folks could afford better residences as opposed to having to live in a walking distance to their job, which drove up costs as individuals competed for residences.

The automobile enabled individuals to find affordable residences and provided middle income and lower income individuals the power to find jobs not within walkable distance of a residence or rail line. The automobile has been a net good for society, especially the low income or middle class.

You're describing a chain of events that happened, but doesn't necessarily had to occur. Firstly, the mechanism you describe where people bid up housing near transit corridors also happens near highways and traffic corridors, though it is more dispersed. This effect can and has been mitigated by combining rail transit with buses or trams leading to rail stations. It is of course more effective in less suburbanized areas where density is higher.

That's not to say that there's something inherently wrong with the American suburban model, it just doesn't scale well. So much space is wasted on parking lots for vehicles that stand empty most of the day. And rush hour traffic is just not fixable beyond a certain point, no matter how many lanes are added to the highways.

It's just flat-out wrong to claim that non-car commutes only benefit the affluent. That's entirely dependent on how the economics of the community are set up. If there's a will to have everyone commute by public transit, there are many ways to achieve it.

>"So much space is wasted on parking lots for vehicles that stand empty most of the day"

Don't forget that these stretches of black asphalt act as giant heat accumulators, soaking up the sun during the day and keeping temperatures uncomfortably high after the sun goes down.

That can be fixed with some trees (or better yet: captalized upon with solar panels). Parking garages are another option for more space-efficient parking

Parking garages are much superior to flat parking lots, especially if you put them underground, underneath the buildings in question. Keep the eyesores hidden.

The best option would be to make neighborhoods walkable/bikeable, implement good public transit as much as possible, and offer an affordable delivery service for bigger items. Going further, it would be beneficial to abolish megastores and return to more human-sized retail outlets.

"Parking garages are much superior to flat parking lots, especially if you put them underground, underneath the buildings in question. Keep the eyesores hidden."

Indeed. A lot of this sort of infrastructure can and should be built below-ground. Parking garages, warehouses/storage, utilities, the works.

"Going further, it would be beneficial to abolish megastores and return to more human-sized retail outlets."

Not sure if I follow. Megastores are nice as one-stop shops, reducing the need to drive around town to get everything.

I am in favor of making them more modularized/sectionalized, such that they can be rearranged vertically (whether above-ground or below-ground) and reduce the horizontal footprint. Their similarly-sprawling parking lots also can and should be replaced with underground parking garages.

My point regarding megastores is that they squeeze out neighborhood stores, which they can do because corporate is willing to burn money to take over markets.

Sterile charmless megastores are a symbol of unrestrained corporatism.

I don't mind department stores, but I do have a problem with Walmart and their ilk.

Wal-Mart as a specific example also happens to be readily affordable and available to lower-class (let alone middle-class) Americans 24-hours a day and 7 days a week. Very few neighborhood or even department stores offer that, nor do most grocers (Safeway being a notable exception). It's for that reason that I tend to appreciate Wal-Mart's existence; yeah, it certainly ain't the best employer, and I know I personally prefer shopping at the mom-and-pop stores, but I also recognize that most Americans don't have the privilege of being choosy about those sorts of things.

As an additional bonus, most Wal-Marts (in my observation) will let you park your car there overnight, no questions asked. For someone who's homeless and living out of one's car, or for someone who's traveling and can't afford lodging, that's a pretty huge help.

I live in an area of Berlin where about half the residents are on social security. Everybody is within walking distance to a bus stop, buses come every ten minutes or so, and trains and subways take you to the city center in less than half an hour. An hour in public transport connects almost any two points in Berlin. Public transport is an effective alternative to cars in cities with decent density.

Biking to the city center is also possible and takes about half an hour as well.

It's apparent you have never been to Chicago or spent much time in New York. Affordable housing is available 30 minutes in transit away from the Chicago business district, and a less than one hour subway ride from Manhattan's.

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