Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

There are many comments claiming that "walkable" neighborhoods are better for everyone which is why mixed-use neighborhoods should make the most sense.

But with southern hot cities like Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, etc, walking anywhere outside for more than 10 minutes will leave you a dripping sweaty mess. I think this is why the USA doesn't see a tidal wave of walkable neighborhoods. Thus, suburbs requiring cars (with air conditioning) still rule. Even in Florida retirement communities where there's a "planned" walkable neighborhood with a nearby fitness center and small grocery store, most use motorized golf carts instead of walking. Unlike coastal cities with ocean breezes like San Francisco, walking is very uncomfortable in many places.

Another issue with grid street neighborhoods is that many don't like thru traffic and noise. Thus the dead-end cul-de-sacs that many academics hate are loved by residents who prefer the reduced car noise and extra privacy.

American suburbs is one of those topics where mainstream media misleads their readers. If you only read from New York Times, New Yorker, or even the topmost upvoted threads on HN, you'd miss out on the "dark matter" of residents who genuinely prefer American style suburbs.

[EDIT] : I want to add some more comments for those think many Americans are unaware of the advantages of dense living and their choice of suburbia is from ignorance. The counterpoint to that is many Americans follow this life timeline:

- early 20s (single no kids) : going to college in a city or working at a downtown firm so they enjoy the dense city living like Manhattan, Chicago, etc... walking to restaurants and bars, museums, cultural things

- mid-life with kids: they enjoyed cities in their younger years but they want to raise a family so they move out to the suburbs. They want the better schools, yard, garage to putz around in etc.

- retired and kids are grown leaving an "empty nest": some senior citizens might sell the suburb house and move to a city condo and walk to museums again.

My point is that many people who live in suburbs are quite informed by real life experience to the advantages of "walkable cities" but the still prefer suburbs for its advantages as well. This aspect is underreported by the mainstream media.

There are plenty of walkable cities in hot climates all over the world. Look at South America or Asia. After wearing appropriate clothing--loose open-weave linen, shorts, etc., not dense cotton t-shirts and tight baseball caps--and spending significant time outside, one can grow accustomed to the heat.

In many countries in Central and South American it's common for men to wear pants and even suits in 80+ weather and nobody's complaining--because they've grown accustomed to the heat after being outside all day. Go to Hong Kong or Singapore or Japan in the summer where it's stifling outdoors and men are wearing full suits as they walk about their day. I'm not saying we have to wear full suits in Florida--I'm just saying that one grows accustomed to one's environment.

Americans feel they deserve to wear in Florida whatever they were wearing in Chicago; and then since most of their day is spent transitioning from one from freezing-cold refrigerated space to another to freezing-cold refrigerated space, with only brief flashes outdoors as they walk from their car to their shopping mall, they never get the chance to accustom themselves to their environment. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This a good comment. I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland. I then lived in London, spent time in Berlin & L'viv.

I can tell you my preference is not London. It's loud, even when it's not. It's dirty. And wow is it busy.

I think Berlin does a nice job blending big city, with accessibility and quality of life.

Ultimately without a European visa though I'm back in the American suburbs which I enjoy. I like the fact that it's quiet, private, and I have yard and the space to entertain friends and family.

I agree with your last point. I've done city and suburban living and prefer the suburb life for quiet and space.

I'm only here for the schools. We'd prefer the close-to-the-city old suburbs (on entirely grid-layout streets, easy walk to various stores and entertainment, parks galore), country living, or the city proper, in roughly that order. The twisty-street burbs with nothing walkable is our last choice. Except it's the only thing available where the good (public) schools are.

> But with southern hot cities like Atlanta

I grew up in Atlanta and lived there for 40 years. You're full of shit.

People love going outside and there are outdoor events year round. The beltline has been expanding around the city since the Olympics in the late 90s. Old neighborhoods like the Lindbergh, Edgewood, Inman Park, Kirkwood, and Avondale are all perfectly walkable with their overgrowth of trees. Even Atlantic Station, which is completely devoid of trees and lacking any soul, is tolerable due to the long shadows cast by the buildings.

Yes the heat and humidity can be unrelenting when you're going from your cozy AC'd house to the mailbox across a stark white heat mirror of a driveway flanking a treeless yard, but that's a product of suburban design esthetic.

Older communities in the city are downright pleasant, it's only the newer suburban neighborhoods with expansive treeless yards where being outdoors is intolerable.

> Yes the heat and humidity can be unrelenting when you're going from your cozy AC'd house to the mailbox across a stark white heat mirror of a driveway flanking a treeless yard, but that's a product of suburban design esthetic.

I think this hits the nail on the head, many people don't acclimatize because they live in their own artificial climate where they leave an air conditioned home, get in an air conditioned car to go to an air conditioned workplace. I grew up in areas comparable to the one's GP listed long before air conditioning was common and walking places was normal.

> Atlanta

It's fine to walk in a nice tree-lined neighborhood, even in the peak of summer. Walking out in the sun, where there's concrete and asphalt everywhere, that's a big difference.

> genuinely prefer American style suburbs

From among the options they're aware of. That's a confounder that's hard to control for.

I don't know how many Americans have lived only in suburbs. Between being a kid, a student, a young carefree professional and a parent I've lived in any combination of big, small, cheap, expensive, old, new, busy, quiet neighborhoods.

Right now my "American style" suburban house is perfect. When I'm an empty-nester I might go somewhere else, but I'm not here because I'm unaware of other options.

> young carefree professional

Only about a third of Americans older than 25 have finished college. Not long ago, that figure was more like 1 in 4.

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

> Right now my "American style" suburban house is perfect.

In the time of Covid-19? I agree. Before February 2020? Hell, no. I moved to the 'burbs to a 4-bedroom house from my 2-bedroom city apartment. I'll move back when I can dine at bars and restaurants safely again.

I'd love to live downtown and have access to so much.

At the same time my suburban street is pretty isolated and quiet, and I can just send my kids outside to do whatever unsupervised without a second thought ... there's a bunch of fairly wild reserved area bordering and near my house....

I see it as a tradeoff and I'm not sure I'd make that trade for the city right now.

I'm an architect / urban planner who used to live in Phoenix (Tempe, actually). There's absolutely no reason a city in that kind of environment can't be walkable, even in the height of summer. There are two key components:

First, you don't just need mixed-use, but density of mixed-use. This is why London, where I now live, is walkable. There's a good cafe within 2 minutes of my doorstep. A doctor's office and a grocery store and a bakery within 3 minutes. A park and a pub and several more shops within 4 minutes. A hardware store within 5 minutes. I very rarely am required to walk for as long as 10 minutes. Even in an environment like Phoenix, these distances would be perfectly walkable. I've also spent time in Reykjavik in January, and found it quite walkable for exactly the same reason. This has nothing at all to do with climate.

Second, what does have to do with climate is shade. Currently, cities like Phoenix are actually much hotter than the surrounding desert, due to the "urban heat island" effect. This is primarily driven by the abundance of asphalt and other high-thermal-mass, low-albedo surfaces. But cities don't need to be designed this way. If you look at traditional Middle eastern urban design, you can find cities that actually create "urban cool islands", and are (relatively) livable without air conditioning. Key components of these techniques are:

- Very narrow roads / alleys, such that buildings are continuously shading each other and sunlight doesn't reach the ground

- roofs painted white to reflect the sunlight & heat back into space

- "cold sinks" to capture cool night air

- Wind catchers and various other devices to funnel prevailing winds into the alleyways, and to convert thermal updrafts into air movement even when there aren't winds, creating siphons to circulate air out of the cold sinks

- courtyards with pools and vegetation to create evaporative cooling from the moving air.

These techniques and others have been well-understood for several thousand years. They're detailed in a lovely book by Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, called "Natural Energy and Vernacular Architecture". Highly recommended.

However, all of the above is incompatible with low-density development and streets that can carry large amounts of vehicles. The former precludes the necessary density of services, and the latter precludes any of the environmental adaptations that are necessary to make the desert livable. But these are man-made planning choices, not dictates of the environment. Those choices can be un-made.

> Another issue with grid street neighborhoods is that many don't like thru traffic and noise. Thus the dead-end cul-de-sacs that many academics hate are loved by residents who prefer the reduced car noise and extra privacy.

Those cul-de-sacs funnel all the traffic onto feeder streets, and of course all of the services are on the feeder streets. So while the dead ends and crescents are quiet, I don't walk there, I walk to the services and have to put up with much more traffic and noise than I would in a grid setup.

I’m in my first suburb and house since I became independent. I really like the walking trails and the athletic facilities it’s a great way to meet neighbors that isn’t awkward.

One of the big benefits of typical subdivisions is that you DON'T have commercial properties within them. Yes you can find them on the street outside the community but that is the point.

Its homes and at most some amenities that are clearly for the community and not commercial. There is actually a good number of people who don't want the pools, tennis courts, and such, that some larger subdivisions have.

Fortunately in my state its been law for decades all streets have to have a side walk on one side and this makes getting around really simple.

Really comes down to that divide, between home, shopping, and work. A person's home is their castle and their subdivision their country. The barbarians are at the gate

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