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Comment by ahoy | Hacker News Reader

I'm on board with sweeping changes, but most US cities aren't built densely enough to take advantage of public transit even if we do build it.

It's not just a matter of building more transit (which we should be doing!). We have to move people back into urban cores and out of sparsely populated suburbs.

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Japan, the golden child of public transportation, serves suburban areas as well as urban cores. I am not convinced it's altogether an issue of population density. It seems more a cultural issue. In America, public transportation is seen as being for people who can't afford a car. In Japan, it's just part of how you get places.

Well, affording a car in Japan is also very expensive. The cars not so much; the inspections, taxes and parking very much expensive.

So maybe Japan is just the place where almost nobody can afford a car? Thus, the same as the US.

Fix our attitude to car parking and the rest will follow. In Japan there's no street parking, thus narrow streets and no need for sidewalks, saving even more space for actual stuff. If you want to own a car, it's your responsibility to pay for space to keep it in (and you're not even allowed to buy one without showing that you've got a space), you don't get to just dump it in some public space.

Most Americans have driveways and many have garages. It’s a pretty small minority that park their cars on the street. And most city street parking is certainly not free.

> Most Americans have driveways and many have garages. It’s a pretty small minority that park their cars on the street.

Less so in cities I think? In any case, the streets are still built to parked-cars-on-both-sides width.

> And most city street parking is certainly not free.

Even when there is a charge, it's priced far below what the land is worth.

I don't think people realize how much cars have ruined everything!

The USA wasn't bombed during WWII, but look at pictures of American cities in the 1940 vs. the 1970s; tens of thousands of small towns wiped off the map.

Tokyo suburbia is quite dense. Gmaps should have pretty good coverage.

Great point! In Zurich, using public transport is just the way to go for everyone. High-profile banking executives as well as blue-collar workers. Works like a charm

> I'm on board with sweeping changes, but most US cities aren't built densely enough to take advantage of public transit even if we do build it.

We are not even close to having the densest US cities use public transit well. Sparely populated suburbs are a problem, for sure, and they may require cars for a while, but cities still have too many cars because of poor transit management.

Ironically many people already want this (as reflected by housing prices), but can't afford to do so

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