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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

> If you are young without kids, it may not make much difference for you to ride a car, or take a bus, or a train, subway, etc.

We have a toddler and a large dog. We own two electric cargo bikes and get around perfectly well without owning a car. There's car/truck sharing and rental if I really need to transport something large and heavy (> 100kg).

> Just design a better one.

I'd very much prefer if all that parking space and all that space used by 4-lane roads would be used to make the city more dense and walkable. If I can walk to the kindergarden or school, there's no need to even take a bike, if close enough a kid can even walk on their own. The only things that makes such a thing infeasible are cars.

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Maybe you live in SF? Not every city always has good weather. Cargo bikes are useless for most cities because of weather (rain, snow, winter cold, summer hot). It's useful for fun when the weather is great, but not as a main way of transportation.

How do you explain that cargo bikes are very popular with parents in Copenhagen? It's a wet windy city.

I live in Berlin. It’s been raining for a week and cold. Bikes both have a canopy, I have suitable clothing. Granted, it’s less comfortable than sitting in a car, but OTOH I don’t have to go jogging after returning from work. Worst case there’s still Bus and Subway.

Cities like Oslo and Copenhagen aren’t exactly known for good weather either, but have substantial policies around clearing bikeways from snow first, before all other roads. It’s more of an infrastructure problem than anything else: good cycling infrastructure begets cyclists. Walkable cities conjur pedestrians. Look at the Dutch, living in the land of eternal sunshine and mild temperatures.

I would love to be able to walk or ride my bike regularly. However, in the southeastern US it’s 80F+ (27C) with 70F+ (21C) dew point for 4 months of the year. If you travel by foot or bike, you need a shower at each destination to wash off the stench and sweat. It’s so hot here, often times your clothing becomes sweaty as soon as you step outside.

I would gladly live somewhere like Denver, Seattle, or San Francisco if money and family ties to the East coast weren’t an issue. Many of the cities with comfortable climates in the US are very expensive. The remaining, affordable cities have undesirable climates.

Pain starts at the third child. Ideally families should have over nine kids each. Unfortunately, we are a dying society that on average doesn't even reach replacement level of children. If you want to think about a city of the future, it might be worth thinking about whether anybody will be around living in those cities.

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