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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I was a bit confused by this article, especially given the headline. As I read it, the research was something along the lines of: We looked at cities that are known for having a lot of startups. Some of those cities have decent transit systems. Others don't. Where there were decent transit systems, we saw businesses generally clustering around transit. (Which seems fairly obvious.) Where there wasn't decent transit, businesses couldn't very well cluster around it, could they?

I don't actually doubt the general statement that startups are tending to abandon suburban office parks for certain cities--some of which have decent transit systems and commuter rail. And there's probably some connection between transit and attractiveness to young urban-dwellers in particular. But the headline seems only sometimes true.

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Agreed, this looks like a classic example of "correlation != causation".

It seems like this argument taken to it's final conclusion would be that startups gravitate towards cities with better transit than those that don't, which isn't the case given the Austin and San Jose examples.

I sort of wonder how much good transportation correlates with other good things that mostly young people like in their local area.

And, for that matter, San Francisco is nothing to write home about.

It's amazing how it takes an hour to go anywhere in a city 7 miles x 7 miles. I guess transit's pretty good for going between the Mission and SoMa/FiDi.

Of course I haven't lived there in about 30 years, but when I did I think it was better than much of the U.S

It's still much better than almost everywhere else in the US. There are only a handful of cities that are obviously better for public transit in the US.

Tallest dwarf in the party.

Probably second in the US to NYC right?

Personally, I think Chicago's is much better than SF. But SF's is still alright and certainly better than LA (where I am now).

and i thought LA was all right, at least if you are not in the suburbs

Philly is way better than SF for transit. Maybe it's similar within the dense parts but it's 1000% better for nearby areas.

DC trounces SF

When they're not single tracking the Metro.

The study appears to be about businesses that are not startups in the sense that that term is used here. We've edited the headline.

yah, it seems the overall tide for starting businesses is toward urbanization, and a more minor effect is clustering around transit. they also say migration is more toward commuter rail stations, which seems to indicate workers are still spread out into the suburbs.

Agreed.

A more accurate headline would be "More businesses are started in cities that have good public transit".

But even then they are implying a causation which is a huge stretch.

Not at all surprising. Citylab is anti-car propaganda.

If by "anti-car" you mean "for a balanced mix of modes that treats cars as one viable option among several, instead of utter car dominance everywhere all the time", then this is an accurate statement.

It's amazing to me how many people feel that anything less than 99% of resources going to car-based transportation constitutes some sort of vile political agenda. "How dare anyone try to give people choices for how to get around?? Walking? With my legs?!"

> that treats cars as one viable option among several

Their writings hardly treat cars as one viable option as the majority of their writing is specifically against cars. How often do they criticize bicycles? Yet cars are criticized every chance they get.

It isn’t about agreeing about cars or not, but to suggest they treat cars as just another “viable” option is to admit not having spent much time reading their writings. When have they ever proposed improving anything relating to cars? Their idea of an improvement is elimination.

With the Wuhan virus, having good car infrastructure sounds pretty good right now. Yes, public transport, for sure, but the idea of ending cars is ridiculous — and CityLab promotes exactly that, albeit in couched terms. But ending cars completely would make them very happy.

They're an American site, of course they want to reduce the use of cars, cars have been hideously overpromoted in the US, resulting in insane costs for the user, crazy high costs for the government, horrible health impacts, high fatality rates, tons of unnecessary pollution, etc.

In most parts of the country, the car is literally the only viable way to make most trips. That's how much they've dominated every aspect of our transportation system.

Taking the 'position' that such a monoculture is bad, is about as political as asserting that lack of racial or gender diversity in workplaces is bad.

Do you feel bothered by sites that don't argue the other side too, that we should keep homogeneous workplaces around? Does it count as a pro-diversity 'bias' when they don't do that?

> the idea of ending cars is ridiculous

So wait, did you accuse me of not reading them because you haven't read them yourself? You see, they've never actually promoted this, and yet here you are, asserting that they have.

Reducing the use of cars in favor of other, less harmful modes sure, and car bans in some select areas, yeah. You can't walk on the freeway usually either. It's the height of absurdity to equivocate that with a total ban, anymore than saying that people who don't want me biking on the interstate don't want me biking anywhere ever.

> Their writings hardly treat cars as one viable option as the majority of their writing is specifically against cars. How often do they criticize bicycles? Yet cars are criticized every chance they get.

Maybe this is the case because cars have far more negative externalities than other forms of transit.

Like, can you even think of a legitimate thesis for an article about the negative externalities of a bike friendly community?

> When have they ever proposed improving anything relating to cars?

I find this ironic because many things they promote, such as improving transit and bike infrastructure, will actually make driving easier and more pleasant because there will be fewer cars in the road to create traffic

You can’t optimize for both public transit and personal cars. It’s one or the other, otherwise everyone will opt for personal cars. Also, personal cars consume so much public resource such as land that it doesn’t leave any room for anything else.

> having good car infrastructure sounds pretty good right now

Right now everyone who can should be at home, so the streets shouldn't need particularly good infrastructure to handle the rest.

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