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Comment by skh | Hacker News Reader

I lived for a while in Berlin. Coming back to the U.S. the first thing I noticed were too many billboards and ugly parking lots. Each store has its own parking lot. Largely underused. No nice paths to traverse the bleak endless parking lot landscape. It’s ugly and wasteful. It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander. Even in relatively walkable communities like the one I live in have far fewer people out and about. An endless stream of cars going from one ugly parking lot to the another. I wish I could move to Europe permanently.

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> It’s hostile to pedestrians and discourages people from going outside to just wander

This is a good point. The leisurely stroll is practically nonexistent in my city. I'm in a more rural setting, but there is still a well-defined city hub. It just feels awkward walking down the sidewalk when people are zooming by at 35mph+.

The result is sidewalk cut offs, which is inconvenient to me as a biker. There are frequently plants starting to take over because no one cares to use the walks.

Makes sense that people gradually prefer to spend their free time with Netflix, video games, or in a gym.

Where I grew up (Huntsville, Alabama), if you saw a pedestrian or cyclist around town you would assume they are homeless. After living in SF and Montreal and traveling in Europe, I can't see myself going back to a "car-first" city. Which sucks because that's pretty much all the US offers.

There was the author, Bill Bryson, moving back to the US after a few decades un the UK. He would take a stroll, and his neighbors would constantly offer a ride, thinking his car broke down or something.

Ha, we enjoy walking also and have to fend off a lot of offers for a ride.

I recall he also had an anecdote about his next-door (or at least very close) neighbours driving to his house for some kind of party.

See also Larry Mc Murtry's Duane's Depressed.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/duanes-depressed_larry-mcmurtr...

Or of course, Bradbury.

https://genius.com/Ray-bradbury-the-pedestrian-annotated

New York, SF, Boston and San Diego are quite nice for walking IMO. But it's definitely more prevalent in Europe. My commute here in Copenhagen consists of a 10 minute bike ride and it makes me happy every day.

back in the UK I had a 40 minute bike ride to work, along the river and canal. Was perfect distance. Enough to be a decent workout, but not enough to dread how long it would take. Watching nature change through the year - mitigatory birds coming and go, the trees blossoming back to life and shutting down in the autumn / fall was beautiful.

Another major benefit was by the time I got home, the stress of the day was long gone. When I used to drive, the 45 minute journey of being mostly stuck in traffic meant I was more wound up when arrived home than when I left work

> New York

Oh please. Call spade a spade - you are talking about Manhattan, Dumbo or Williamsburg, Harlem and newly gentrified, serviced by subway places with white cafes and bars and restaurants loved by the lily white people working in tech or in finance. The thing is... it is a very small part of NYC. People in Queens take a car to get to a subway because it takes thirty to fourty minutes to get to it otherwise and after that it takes another hour and half to get to the place of work, but hey, who cares about Cinthia Lopez that cleans the desks on clowns working at Google that want to bike to work from their $6k/mo apartments.

You are not talking about Queens or Bronx or Bed-Stuy; you are not talking about Crown Heights or Inwood, or Washington Heights or Staten Island (it is also NYC even though people really like forgetting it).

Coincidentally, I recently came across an interesting quip while reading "the Fountainhead" recently:

[Peter Keating discussing whether or not he and his wife should build a country home away from the city] "Will you like commuting?" "No, I think it will be quite an awful nuisance. But you know, everybody that's anybody commutes nowadays. I always feel like a damn proletarian when I have to admit that I live in the city."

Even in Queens only a relatively small percentage of people own cars and even fewer use a car as part of their commute. Recent data indicate that less than 3% of low income workers commute by car. Your average outer borough janitorial worker is going to be taking a bus to the subway (though if citibike and some protected lanes were available I’m sure some would consider that option).

Washington Heights and Inwood are quite walkable and most people there commute by subway, without having to drive to it. The same goes for Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy.

I lived on a college campus for two years without a car, with on-campus amenities and a very walkable town right next to it. Now that I live elsewhere with a car, I can't see myself ever going to a pedestrian-only area. I just do not like having to walk everywhere. The closest on-campus food was a five minute or so walk away from my dorm room, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I didn't like having to walk even that distance. Classes could sometimes be a 10 minute walk apart. Town was only 10 minutes away but I never went there because I didn't want to do the walk. So, I largely didn't go around much. Not to mention how uncomfortable it could be outside during the coldest parts of the winter or hottest parts of summer. I'd settle for a freezer burned hot pocket instead of having to walk in the biting cold even with a good jacket and gloves.

Nowadays, with a car, I don't mind driving for 10 minutes somewhere - it's actually often enjoyable, whereas walking for ten minutes out of necessity feels like an annoyance and a burden. I don't mind walking when I want to, like on hikes, but I certainly don't miss it being a necessity. There is a fast food place about 1.5 miles from me, which many consider walking distance, but I always take the car there and use the drive-thru even though the way there is very walkable.

The place I'm at right now is a nice compromise of usability for pedestrians and motorists, but I personally plan to someday live in a more rural area and maybe have a small farm, and I'm not bothered at all by the fact that such a place is essentially car-only.

I felt similarly while at college.. until I got a bike. Urban bicycling has changed my life entirely. Did you ever try it? What used to be a 20 minute walk becomes a 5 minute glide. In SF and Montreal, google maps even acknowledges that most routes are fastest by bike.

Even here in TN where it's easy to drive without congestion, biking allows me to simultaneously save fuel, get blood pumping, and run errands. Feels practical

> I wish I could move to Europe permanently.

This is the "Vote with your wallet" at the international civic level.

It may not have been very convenient or practical in the past but it seems to be becoming an increasingly accessible option, at least for first-world people.

Move to the places whose ideals align with yours, and help them develop those, if you can't convince your current home to adopt them.

There is already a well known expression for this in European languages "Voting with their feet":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_voting

Can you elaborate? You are still beholden to visa requirements to relocate permanently. How do you exercise your vote given that?

It’s not as easy as it should be, yet, but if you can get a job somewhere they would help you relocate, or you can look for places that offer residence via investment.

>"... or you can look for places that offer residence via investment.

Interesting, I know that the Netherlands has such a program, might you know any other? Thanks.

The comment I left on how exactly to do this was marked off topic and detached (no idea why to be honest), but feel free to message me if you want some advice. There are a few ways to do it.

Also this whole idea is known as Exit, Voice, and Reason too.

The "hostile to pedestrians" is a feeling I get in many countries. When I'm walking somewhere I often have to walk at the side of the road where cars drive at least 50 km/hr and often honk at me or drive by dangerously close. It always makes me feel like I'm doing something illegal, or wrong.

Just a side question: Did you also happen to found that you're more likely to going into a store when walk by it compare to drive by? (assuming you can park your car right at the spot and no charge)

I don't know the answer to this. In Berlin I had no car and walked everywhere near my flat. Just strolling around I would end up finding shops, cafes, whatnot. When I used public transportation I had a destination in mind. So it was more purposeful and I didn't normally casually find a store when I used public transportation.

Now that I'm in the U.S. except for one street I never casually go to a store. Everything is purposeful. In the U.S. I go to the store because I need to and it's not a chance encounter. I know where I'm going and what I want to get.

Though I hate the huge, ugly parking lots and what they represent. I tend to purchase stuff online and rarely go to a store these days. I do try to go for walks frequently but that is to get outside and I don't shop when I do this.

The fact that people walk around their neighborhood also has has an effect in local commerce. Most neighborhoods in European cities have bakeries, coffee shops, clothing stores, pharmacies, etc. Posher areas will have higher end ones, poorer areas will tend to have shittier ones, but in the end you always have your basic needs covered at no more than 10 minutes walk. I found that in the USA it was much more sparse and you'll normally find these things in the typical "strip malls" (which, the first time I heard the name, shocked me as I thought they were taking me to a strip tease show or something). Even bars in strip malls were shocking to me since they'd have to drive there, and drive back, sometimes drunk.

This is absolutely true for me. For me even cycling doesn't cut it. If the store is only moderately interesting, it doesn't hurt to spend a few seconds walking into its door. But it's already too much trouble locking my bike, removing my helmet and then walking in, let alone in a car.

And then Berlin is rather car-friendly by Euro standards..

Berlin is the most car friendly city in Germany, both east and west (and the united city) spent a lot of money on car friendly streets - and still is.

It's funny that the German political party SPD which is responsible for most of this now wants to rebrand itself as bicycle friendly. But the largest sausage producer in Germany is now also the largesg vegan 'meat' producer. And soon pigs will fly.

This hyperbole is obviously wrong or do you have any facts to show it?

I don't know anyone enjoying taking the car in Berlin and one is often faster with public transport or the bike in the city center.

> rebrand itself as bicycle friendly Shocking! Political parties changing course to adapt to change in popular opinion.

To add to this: I wouldn't call it "most car friendly city in Germany", either - but driving there isn't "hell on earth" either: I felt it's neither better nor worse than e.g. Kaiserslautern or the 10k inhabitants "city" I went to school - the traffic is just on a different scale due to the city being huge (compared to most other German cities).

(Disclaimer: I'm a relaxed driver; my experience might not hold for those who enter the full-rage mode when starting the engine)

Berlin built a very expensive tunnel in the city center, still expands the inner Autobahn ring, has large east/west streets (Stalinallee and 17th June), parking was free in residential areas until very recently, tickets for parking in the wrong spots are a joke and cars parking on sidewalks or bicycle lanes are pracically never ticketed. Bicycle police which was introduced to ticket cars and bicycles practically in the same way never tickets car drivers [1]

Compare this with the pedestrian infrastructure (many bad sidewalks in the East) or bicycle with no or chaotic lanes [2]. Also when houses are build or roads are maintained, car driver concerns are always prioritized above cyclists and pedestrians [3].

[1] https://rad-spannerei.de/2015/07/14/berliner-fahrradstaffel-...

[2] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/mediacenter/fotostrecken/berlin/...

[3] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/images/schild-soeren-dumpf/22966...

Well, there are plenty of cars in Berlin, so unless they're all masochists they probably enjoy that more than the other options. That I personally can't see why doesn't change that.

Times change and mentalities with them. I think many European cities had a "cars everywhere" mentality during the post-WWII "renaissance" (maybe inspired by the USA) but then we realized that we hit a limit and started scaling things back starting sometime in the early 90's I'd say. Many projects from the 70's that were hailed as the future of transportation are now seen as huge warts we don't know how to replace now. Take the Boulevard Périphérique around Paris for instance: a nuisance for people living nearby, often gridlocked, super dangerous and atrociously ugly.

People realized that this approach wasn't sustainable and now more and more work is done to undo it, that's a good thing IMO. Ancient European cities simply were not built to accommodate cars, they don't fit.

> Take the Boulevard Périphérique around Paris for instance: a nuisance for people living nearby, often gridlocked, super dangerous and atrociously ugly. People realized that this approach wasn't sustainable and now more and more work is done to undo it, that's a good thing IMO.

Do not worry, we still go on building ring roads and bypasses around cities. Either where there were not yet any, or farther from the centre and the existing ones where there are already existing ones.

- But this time, they will be enough far away from the city, and they will make traffic jam disappear, we promise.

- Yeah, that's what you said 40 years ago about the first ones, and then urbanisation exploded around them and they quickly got swallowed by the city and its suburbs...

Bus yes, it is true that the fad of building expressways ending right inside city centres has stopped quite a long time ago.

What Paris could have looked like if Pompidou had his way in the 70s: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_autoroutier_pour_Paris

Yes, but Berlin is car-friendly AND pedestrian-friendly. And getting close to bike-friendly as well. The thing is, Berlin has a huge area for a relatively modest amount of inhabitants.

This allows the city to "breath" a lot more and there is not so much competition for the space between cars, bikes and people.

Compare that to dense cities like London, Paris or Barcelona, and there is a lot more to fight for.

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