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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

This is so out of touch it's kind of offensive.

Unlike you, most people struggle to make ends meet, are happy they have a job and can provide for their family. The upper-class "let's build architecture that inspires" screams "I have more money and time than I know what to do with".

It's like looking down at people who eat at McDonald's (I got your reference!) with comments like "these folks wouldn't know good food if their life depended on it!".

Sorry not everyone can be rich and have the same "refined" sense of taste that you do. But they're too stupid to know what's best for them, right?

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How does someone saying that things could be built better come off as high level elitism? I’ve stayed in small European towns where they have the cultural amenities of an American city perhaps five to six times its population. Normal people can live good, healthy lives there. Normal people struggling to survive while driving everywhere with few healthy options in sight is a manufactured issue.

When someone says :

  "Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesthetics."

It completely comes over as high level elitism.

When someone objects to comparisons of taste, they insist that everythinn has essentially the same merit. Which is often hypocritical as they'd be rather found dead than with a lower back tattoo themselves.

That is certainly true. But the problem with stroads isn't merely one of esthetics; they're expensive and inefficient, and they exist primarily because everything is designed around suburban car owners who want to do everything by car. They're completely inaccessible to anyone who can't afford a car. Stroads are themselves elitists because they exist for people who don't live there, don't care about the neighbourhood, about accessibility for others, or how much economic or environmental damage it does, as long as they're not inconvenienced by it.

Old city centers turned into massive thoroughfares destroy the communities that live there. Whole communities get sacrificed for affluent car owners from the suburbs. But this is not just harmful for poor people, it's also bad for the economy in general; they're inefficient, cost too much money to maintain, don't make enough money, so they require constant influx of subsidies, and this sort of development has lead to the bankruptcy of several US cities. It's not sustainable from any perspective.

Not just elitism, it's actual racism, quite simply. Can you imagine the outrage if it was "overweight, black trash, gang tattoos of aesthetics"?

It’s not the same. Black Americans are still fighting for their right to not get shot at by police. White America is seething that Trump had his election “stolen” from him and is scheming to put him back in power in 2024.

Don’t see how acceptability of racism follows from police shootings

> overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo

is elitism. Even if it's right, it's elitism.

If our options are trying to remain status quo or becoming “elite” (as if thats a thing) well then I am not picking status quo. We should build things that inspire is what I am saying and yes I used a visual imagery of the least inspiring most tragically basic thing (that someone willfully chooses to become and do) that came to mind.

You think equating poor civil design to "poor white trash" is doing your part to change it? The only way you could improve things is to post this kind of garbage on your elitist internet forums and smugly deride anyone who objects? That is what is elitist.

Hope that clears things up for you.

Is there anything as elitist as saying "Hope that clears things up for you."? As if you are an arbiter of clarity.

I'll do my part building things that are pretty and useful. You do whatever you think is best.

You can we we advocate for this position in a less snobbish way. It’s times like this I feel like a real idiot for expecting more from this site than the average Reddit trainwreck comment thread.

Guess what, you’re not that much better than everyone who disagrees with you.

You're on an elitist forum, you get what you pay for. Just because half the commenters here fancy themselves sharing the struggle of the working class does not mean they actually respect or care about the "trash".

Poor people aren't building stroads. Cities and states are, and they do have the money to make them safer and more enjoyable for everyone.

We as a society, in many aspects, used to eat AND build better when we were poorer. It is a matter of desire and priority.

Also McDonalds is only cheaper if you’re in a food desert. Which areas that rely on stroads rarely are.

Also, notice how the building around stroads and most “modern” buildings get knocked down and rebuilt every 10 years? Seems like something only a rich society could afford to do.

We as a society, in many aspects, used to eat AND build better when we were poorer

Spoken like someone whose never been poor.

My biological grandfather is actually on the lowest decile of income in the US, i am quite sure he eat better than me and most of the people here. And most people in his community fare the same way.

Ok, so factually we are more wealthy than we have ever been as a society across the entire wealth distribution and yet we have an obesity epidemic. An obesity epidemic is very much a rich country problem. Our terrible food has nothing to do with it being too expensive (Although listening to the FDA back when they advocated 10+ servings of grains a day probably didn't help).

Also expecting people to apologize for their social station is tacky as hell. You play the hand you're dealt to the best of your ability. Anyone who claims otherwise has an agenda. Why would your critique of spoken like someone who has never been poor have any merit whatsoever?

I have not noticed widespread occurrences of 10-year old buildings being knocked down and rebuilt. Have you noticed this? Where?

A building takes more than a year to build typically; if they were being knocked down every 10 years, the entire city would look like nothing more than a construction site.

This happens all the time. This twitter account has tons of examples: https://twitter.com/arch_crimes/status/1460426779714220032?s...

Also most suburban sprawl is a never ending construction site. It is insanely expensive.

Stroads are more expensive to build than the alternative, and hence this entire argument can be dismissed outright.

Those evolved out of small towns. For some reason Strongtowns has no perspective on history. That “stroad” wasn’t one a decade earlier, it was a rural road through a small town.

Yeah, it’s be great if it were dense and walkable but guess what, we cant jump from farm land to NYC 5th Ave in one step.

It comes across as incredibly ignorant to be honest.

Hey, this is just a personal attack and has nothing to do with the topic of the post.

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