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Comment by HonestOp001 | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely not. Cars allowed people to access areas they would not be able to.

Look at why sprawl occurred, it was not started by cars, it started with trains. The trolleys would allow for undeveloped land to be used, reducing rents that had been increased by demand. Then came the car. Instead of being dependent on the trolley to get you from place to place, you could allocate resources to get there. Economic activity boomed after that. There may be some difference on the implementation of automotive vehicles, but they are not a mistake.

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If cars had been kept as an additive to public transit then I might buy your position but a lot of public transit systems were specifically destroyed at the direction (and with subsidies from) car manufacturers.

Trains and trolleys did allow for some suburban growth - but the sprawl didn't come into being until cars became the norm for transport... specifically, commuting by train and using cars for leisure could have been the world we live in, rather than this hellish landscape where cars are the norm for getting to the work or picking up groceries.

This may differ from your world view but please just compare the west to east coast where most of the eastern cities were built first without cars in mind and only later expanded - vs. a lot of west coast cities that have always been car first.

The difference is extremely stark.

> hellish landscape where cars are the norm for getting to the work or picking up groceries

To each their own.

I've never quite understood why the anti-car crowd is so prone to hyperbole with their criticism of the status quo. "Hellish Landscape", really?

I might not use that hyperbole myself but if you've ever had to sit through LA traffic day in and day out it's really not that hard to imagine why people get upset about it. Yeah if you live in the middle of nowhere it's a different story.

Different strokes for different folks.

To me, the "hellish landscape" is the NYC subway system (arguably the best in the US).

While I live in NYC and not LA, I'm a frequent visitor to LA. I'd gladly sit through LA traffic over riding the NYC subway. Sitting in my own personal, clean, climate controlled space, listening to music I enjoy.

I've never been to NYC but I never realized how much I would prefer a good public transit system until I visited Seoul. I probably wouldn't use a car much if at all if I lived there. I suspect NYC is still a pretty low bar for what public transit could be, best in the US isn't saying much when most cities have practically nothing to begin with.

Completely agree. I lived in Seoul for a bit (I'm Korean American) and it is still by far the best subway system I've experienced.

I would gladly use Seoul's subway. I only grudgingly use NYC's (and nowadays, I bicycle as much as I can to avoid using it).

Ah cool makes sense, thanks for the comparison. I have definitely noticed that outside the obvious downsides of most American public transit (mainly, longer commute, often still stuck in traffic, having to pay close attention to the schedules at all times, etc), the commute options are also often noticeably dirtier or filled with a lot more homeless people who are sometimes not totally there mentally and that's certainly something that would have to be addressed to see mass adoption. Obviously I think public transit should be open to everyone regardless of socioeconomic background but practically speaking it also needs to be palatable for most people, not really sure what the solution would be.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever been to Tokyo? I feel I've heard good things about its public transit but have only visited so briefly I didn't get much chance to use it myself.

Yes, have also visited Tokyo a few times. The Tokyo subway is also fantastic, certainly mountains better than NYC’s. But I’d rank Seoul’s as slightly better still.

FWIW many discussions that criticize any aspect of NYC’s subway system often gets shut down with “but we have 24/7 service and they don’t”. Personally, I feel 24/7 service is a contributing factor to the NYC subway’s problems.

Yes. Really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ

I'm looking at it from the perspective of what I consider truly hellish. Is suburban sprawl bad, sure. But let's be honest, how does any of what was shown in that video compare to a warzone, a slum in an underdeveloped country, or some polluted Superfund site?

When I think "hellscape", I think of this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie

Hyperbole is a literary tool - please don't pedantically pick at my word choice. It doesn't lead to interesting discussion.

If you're going to use provocative words you should be prepared for some pushback when people challenge the appropriateness of the terms you've chosen.

Well - there's been an excessive discussion focused on my usage of the term "hellscape" and seemingly no pro-car discussion to my actual comment. It feels quite nitpicky to swoop in to criticize a specific term used without actually discussing what that term was contained within.

I'm not even particularly pro-car. One does not have to disagree with your broader perspective in order to be critic of your word choice. I see your frustration as something that comes with the territory. When you use hyperbole in your rhetoric you risk people taking issue with the specific allusion and proceeding to refute it. Probably because refuting that hyperbole can be seen as diminishing the rest of your argument.

The real Hell is a place of infinite and everlasting torment, so all Earthly comparisons are by necessity hyperbole.

Thanks for linking that - it's quite a well put together run down of how big the contrast really is.

A city made up of car parks.

I'm looking outside right now and the landscape is far from hellish. Public transit is a great option for many trips and cars certainly have some downsides, but it sure is nice to be able to drive my car to pick up bulk groceries at Costco.

Oh, taking a car to get to Costco is awesome. When I lived on my own and shopped via walking I'd still occasionally borrow a friends time to do a big run with them to pick up canned goods, flour, etc... the stuff that's heavy and that you buy in bulk.

But in America, if you want half a pound of pastrami you're probably going to have to get in a car to get it unless you live in one of the few areas that still follows that sort of dense city planning.

It will be interesting how the American suburbs will fare in the upcoming years. With interests rising and home buyers getting more careful, the Ponzi-esque scheme of buying a house in a suburb might collapse [1, 2].

American culture is partly unthinkable without cars because of planning and zoning failures made decades ago. Why don't have suburbs a lot of small super markets and other stores? Why does everybody need to drive miles and miles to get a gallon of milk?

1: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-pon...

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

What is the alternative? Live in the city in dense, tight, expensive housing?

FWIW, many suburbs do have supermarkets and stores in their downtowns/mainstreets. I can walk...10 minutes or so to my local supermarket. But I choose not to do so because I can drive there and buy a week+'s worth of groceries and supplies in one go. I don't think most suburbanites hop in the car to get a single bottle of milk.

As much as there are people that prefer living in cities, there are people that prefer living in the suburbs.

A young twentysomething single me would have preferred living in downtown Manhattan and wouldn't have minded living in a 300 sqft studio, meeting friends, partying, partaking in cultural experiences that only a major city can offer.

Thirtysomething married me finds that scenario unappealing. Having a SFH in a quiet suburban street with a backyard to BBQ in, a garden to tend, lazy weekends with no cultural activities whatsoever, and a car(!) to drive around in is what I want... short of being extremely wealthy enough to have the best of both worlds.

Western Europe doesn't have the problems of America's suburbia. You just don't see the solutions because you are trapped in the mindset that cars are ubiquitous and alternatives must therefore be bad.

As I said, it will be interesting how well the American suburbs will be able to function. They function only because of heavily subsidized infrastructure and the poor parts of town are the ones paying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Do you have any answer to the OP's preference for raising children in the space and privacy of a single family home?

Yes, the Netherlands have a large amount of single family homes without the need for American-style suburbs. Over 56% of all Dutch citizens own at least one house, 69% of all residential buildings are owned by the people living in them. Those houses are mostly not oversized like American houses and have less land attached to them. For comparison, the home ownership rate for the US is about 65.3%.

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

Everything points to the American way of doing housing and infrastructure is wrong and could be done cheaper and easier if American city planners were to look at other parts of the world.

You don't need a massive backyard for that.

Trains literally do not encourage sprawl. They encourage dense walkable towns built around train stations.

What encouraged sprawl was R-1 zoning where it’s illegal to build apartment blocks with cafes and grocers in them.

A common theme in capitalism is that it is illegal to help yourself.

Sprawl is a symptom. You are fleeing from the city core because there are uncooperative individuals owning land and real estate. You cannot improve the city without their consent, so you flee and run away from the corrupt rent seekers.

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