Comment by decentrality | Hacker News Reader

Comment by decentrality | Hacker News Reader

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San Diego is tending toward car-free living anyway, so this is in line with that trend. Downtown we have scooters everywhere, as someone else mentioned. We have free public transit in various forms, for individuals and families alike.

Parking is generally not included in rent, that is a separate charge normally, so in essence it's already "no parking space" and you're just getting a better rate than outside, even when you park under/beside where you live. You're really _also_ getting security, not just parking. That's the real issue, if you have a car downtown, which I do.

All this being said, parking is generally very difficult here compared to other places with less concentrated downtown environments; more in Little Italy than in the Gaslamp Quarter, and more difficult in Gaslamp versus East Village. But again, cars are becoming less of a thing, and people are adapting.

What I hear in the comments so far is a misunderstanding of what a metropolitan area is. It's not designed to be the same as a suburban area. In the suburbs, you need "large vehicle" transportion, versus downtown where you need what's called "last mile" ... like scooters. Any other people need to do their research and see we even have FRED which is _free rides_ ... so you could park somewhere that isn't oppressively priced and get a free ride ( not even pay for an Uber/Lyft or scooter or bike, etc ) and be totally fine.

It's the problem of taking a suburban attitude into a downtown environment that's causing people to miss out on the actual purpose of the space and the infrastructure we already have.

As someone from San Diego I find it insane that you think the city is “tending toward car-free living.”

Even in 5-10 years when the trolley maybe hits the beach, how would you get to north county?. What if you’re in north park and you work in spring valley? How is San Diego tending toward making that more available?

I wish I could offer a more constructive response but it’s honestly very surprising to me that someone would ever make that claim.

As a programmer, we have this concept called "yagni" for "You Aren't Gonna Need It" which is based on this idea that you build only what you need: and I question the idea that living in one place and commuting to another is even going to be a thing as it has been historically.

The daily traffic through Downtown and Mission Valley, North 15, South 163, North 125, East 94, etc, then flipping directions later, is all the truly insane thing.

I don't think we "need" transit that anticipates bad choices of where to live relative to work, and Downtown is part of the World more than the Region. The world is changing this way. People used to live near rivers for water, and near animals for food, etc. Still applies if you can't work remotely.

Working remotely, living a more master-planned life, ride-sharing, etc... these are all options. But instead people prioritize this idea of me the individual in my individual car ought to be able to individually drive with all the other individual drivers wherever I want, and I disagree that is a design priority for a civil infrastructure.

So no, San Diego isn't making that more possible, and I applaud that. But when it comes to the original post and questions posed, it's still safe to say San Diego is tending toward car-free, especially Downtown, if you don't maintain backward compatibility with inappropriate circumstances like what you described. I've heard people say they commute to Point Loma from Descanso and we have a word for that: masochism.

Everyone commuting at all is a choice. The best case I can hear for not being car-free is the delivery business, contractors, etc... people who _actually need_ to be that kind of atypical. But to expect the civil infrastructure to give you the option to all rush certain areas at the same time every day, anywhere on the grid, is a bit old.

As far as getting to the beach, that's definitely an option depending on which beach obviously, but again, this isn't an amusement park so I'm not expecting the government to take me where I want to go, and I do have a car, largely for just driving at night all around the county, or for transporting animals, or making some of the trips you mention -- just never commute. And this is the type of thing San Diego has caused me to question. In the future if I wanted to just drive around, I might consider just using a ride-share rental vs. ride-share driver, etc. I never said public transportation itself was the answer, and to be car-free tending is within that definition: still planning to pay what you cost, not needing a huge system to accommodate me and do massive public works projects. I'd rather there be less of that honestly.

It's like how we all had this mental gap for a minute before people started having only a cellphone and no landline.

But now most of us haven't had a landline in a decade or more.

Though it's related to transportation, it's really similar to that. The modality is changing, not just the methodology.

Except that Downtown is the only place in SD where being car-free is generally possible. SD has terrible public transportation especially now that Amtrak won't run later Coaster routes.

It starts in the center and emanates out. I've seen changes in the county center ripple out for decades, but the pace of that in the last 5 years has dramatically quickened.

Honestly it just takes a different outlook, and the more progressive ideas need to start somewhere. I'm so glad I got to see this first hand and am very impressed. Like I said elsewhere, I'm very grateful for this time Downtown. It has changed my outlook and expectations for wherever I live for the rest of my life.

I've invited my family with a large group of kids to come live here in light of that, and they evolved because of living here too!

In the true sense of the word "awesome" ... it really is. So I am excited to see the entire county evolve by what we do here in its core.

> Downtown we have scooters everywhere, as someone else mentioned.

How do you plan to take children on a scooter? Or is downtown for singles only?

Downtown San Diego is basically for singles only. It's a city mostly full of transients. Once people decide to have a family, they move away or to the suburbs if they are loaded.

You are incorrect on 66-100% of your statement. I feel like you're just regurgitating a bias here.

And it's not even about cost of living if you really get down to it, it's about inability to adapt to the pace of having so many options, that you choose to have fewer, or preferring a slower pace and less options, which is fine.

But the homeless situation has been dramatically affected by positive changes, so no. There are plenty of families, many types of household, so no. And people generally move away from San Diego entirely, not just downtown, if they leave. It's an overall lifestyle change usually. San Diego as a whole is speeding up, and the cost comes with benefits of being here.

But like I said, if it isn't bias, it's preference, and preference is fine! The bias though, is flawed.

( Major edits since downvote since apparently I needed to spell out exactly why this is biased thinking, not just question the bias. This is really unfair to San Diego which is not perfect, but extremely progressive. We've dealt with the majority of the charges rapidly. Check your assumptions and refactor your thinking please )

It’s just that your statements are incorrect about families. The real numbers are: “In the county, children (ages 0 – 17) are 23 percent of the total population, in downtown, they are only 10 percent of the population.”

The thing is, the statistics have a long-tail, and the truth is that when the paradigm shifts, like it did and is doing, it's important to hear from first-hand accounts and not rely on statistics based on overall trends historically. They track an old dynamic, and the new dynamic is tending toward people living anywhere they want, especially into dense areas more comfortably, and the age-old bias toward moving outward at the point of having kids or retiring is reversing. I've seen it first hand, spoken to numerous people who are early adopters to this trend, and in all brackets of social standing and model of domestic life. It is evidence of an overall shift in how we live as people.

The benefits of being in the denser areas versus the believed drawbacks are changing, so much so it makes me genuinely hopeful about one day having 10 billion people versus 8 on the planet, which for someone who wanted less people not more, is notable at least and hinges on this shift. So I would recheck the numbers often and along new metrics, and favor first-hand information in times of change.

I am not single.

http://thefreeride.com/fred/

Just 2.8 stars on Google Play store. Why?

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