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Comment by mattcantstop | Hacker News Reader

For those who are interested in what makes a great town, I recommend two books: Happy City by Charles Montgomery, and Strong Towns by Charles Marohn. Both were red pill/blue pill books for me on what makes a great city.

When my wife and I moved we completely changed what we were looking for in a house/community. We wanted a Main Street style town. We used to love master planned communities with huge houses. In our small, Main Street style town all of our kids can walk/ride to school, we have two grocery stores within 2 miles away, and all our doctors are biking/riding distance. It's changed how we live. We sold our second car. We own so many bikes. We are more active.

Cul-de-sac looks really promising. I've been following along and am excited to see what they create. We need more experiments, even if some don't work out.

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Definitely agree! I would recommend the YouTube channel "Not Just Bikes" which has a series about the book Strong Towns and in general focuses on better city planning: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

The terrible layouts of US cities and neighbourhoods are what keep me in Europe. There is nothing you can do in the US without a car because it's so car dependent and it wastes so much time compared to walking or biking places. The beautifully walkable cities you find in Europe are so much more enjoyable to live in.

A lot of East Coast US cities are a lot more walkable -- the image of the sprawling US city is mostly true of West Coast cities that underwent their primary growth after WWII and the ubiquity of cars. For example, I live in Washington DC (well technically a suburb, but near a Metro station) and don't drive. I have grocery stores and restaurants within walking distance and can take the Metro for other things.

Walkable yes, but often not safely bikeable, which unfortunately limits mobility options quite a bit. I live in Philadelphia and likewise have lots of options within walkable distances/a subway station nearby - that's a big part of why I live here. But here we only have two subway lines, going roughly north/south and east/west. If you need to get anywhere that's not well served by those, your main options are:

- Take a bus, most of which only come every 15 minutes at most

- Walk, which is doable bit adds another 20-30ish minutes to your trip depending on exactly where you're going

That would be more like 10 minutes max on a bike, which easily makes it one of the fastest ways to get around if you consider that you'll be spending several minutes just looking for parking if you were to drive. But the city still prioritizes cars above all else, making it not really a safe option. I absolutely would bike everywhere here if I felt safe enough to do so.

> When my wife and I moved we completely changed what we were looking for in a house/community. We wanted a Main Street style town. We used to love master planned communities with huge houses. In our small, Main Street style town all of our kids can walk/ride to school, we have two grocery stores within 2 miles away, and all our doctors are biking/riding distance. It's changed how we live. We sold our second car. We own so many bikes. We are more active.

This is what drew me and my wife to Portland OR to start a family, and ultimately, how we decided on the neighborhood where we eventually bought a house. The entire city feels this way: pockets of walkable neighborhoods, parks, small grocery stores, restaurants, and beautiful outdoor spaces, all very intentionally designed. We've lived here for several years now, and it still feels very refreshing and lively compared to the suburbs we grew up in. It's hard to overstate the importance of thoughtful urban planning and well designed outdoor spaces on quality of life.

I've always been curious about Portland. The pictures are gorgeous but the headlines are scary.

A friend of mine just moved across the US to Portland because of all the hype and immediately left after being put off by what they described as a very public homelessness and hard drug problem.

That is anywhere with walkable, bikable, and dense living and temperate weather.

Without the ability to involuntarily commit people to mental healthcare facilities, or jail, the only other option is to live somewhere that is less hospitable to homeless people.

And building more to give free / cheap housing to the homeless people who do not need mental healthcare or jail is not going to work on a city or state level, especially in highly desirable areas due to induced demand.

I haven't read those, but I'll add a third book recommendation: A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al. It changed my way of thinking quite a bit about what makes a good house, or a good town.

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