Come to the Netherlands and see how it’s done. It was a car dominated culture till the 60s when they did the “stop murdering our children” campaign. Then, cities reorganized to minimize car use. I love not owning a car. So freeing.
Based on the track record of most of the demographics I see pushing for improvement I fear we'll wind up with some hellscape that combines the worst of both.
We don't have medieval cities, but saying cities were designed around the car is patently false.
Yes, the fifties and sixties caused huge redesigns, but we can undo those.
It's not. Cities have literally been created from nothing in the last few decades. Just because NYC, Atlanta, DC, etc. are old are have a history of redlining does not mean that every city does. Case in point: the cities around where I grew up were built in the last 3 decades. Those cities didn't have a choice but to have zoning laws and miles of road.
I live in Seattle, for instance, which used to have a network of rails. They've all been torn out and we're just now putting them back.
1. get rid of zoning laws that prevent building multi-family units.
2. invest heavily in public transit. Buses are great if they are widespread and arrive frequently.
3. in areas that have significant traffic, use trams/subways instead of buses. They carry way more people and don't sit in traffic.
4. make city centers dramatically more walkable. A 4 lane street is much harder to cross than a 2 lane street (or 2 one way 2 lane streets).
5. don't build new roads/highway exits that will encourage further sprawl.
I expect average household size to have decreased significantly, so it wouldn’t surprise me if at least 75% of inhabitants lived in post-war houses.
Because of that, I don’t see suburban construction as a major difference between the USA and the Netherlands.
A major difference likely is that the USA has room for sprawl, while the Netherlands doesn’t. Dutch suburbs likely are more dense than ones in the USA.
It was built to be replaced. We should try that!
Like the parent said, there was a big push all across europe for cars to be the norm[0]; the US just had more space to continue this deleterious activity.
But it can be reversed.
It just takes effort and deliberate will.
[0]: Jay Foreman has some fun videos on cycling in London, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gohSeOYheXg
Plus, you cannot “reboot” Atlanta to match your cute vision of a core city in the snap of a finger.
I am not saying nothing can be done. I am saying that it is a lot harder that books and papers and studies make it seem.
Unsure, people have really ingrained ideas about cars in the US, any attempt at discussing alternatives is met with emotional backlash and it's very difficult to talk passed this. It's actually very similar in the UK, though you can see a difference in cities with good public transport and those without, it's like we optimise for extremes in either direction.
Objectively if it was a good option (not arguing that it is right now) to have a solid public transport system; people are ideologically opposed because of the belief that public transport is inconvenient, unsafe, a loss of personal freedom etc; and it's hard to argue those points because they're coming from an emotional place, thus people cycle between those issues in an attempt to deflect direct refutation over each one of the points individually.
Cycling infrastructure (as per Amsterdam), a healthy rail network (also NL) and a semi-competent bus and tram system are all parts of a larger picture when referencing public transport.
The solutions are similar, even if they're not the same, there is a lot of research on public transportation and what makes sense where, if one only looks.
The same issue applies to most other large US cities.
Compare that to the nine county Bay Area. There's nearly one transit agency for each county and a few regional agencies (BART, Caltrain) to contend with. The constant bickering and infighting is exactly why nothing gets done.
The actual model of cities is optimized for profit, so all parts involved in building cities can take as much as money they can.
Things will only change when the alternatives to the actual model exceed the actual model in terms of profit.
Or when new players disrupt the market and divert the money flow to other model.
Another way to say this is a stubborn refusal to do things that do not "make sense" under the current model of economics (personal profit above all) because you revalue what is valuable in a society (eg social/corporate well being)
(corporate meaning groups of people, not LLCs)
Without viable mass transit in most American cities the "less cars" mentality falls flat. As a society ruled by "NIMBY" we just don't have the social will, nor seem to care enough about one another to move anything productive forward. As another comment said, the nations that reduced dependence on autos did no decades ago. These towns/cities/suburbs were literally built around a society where everyone has a car. Very difficult/impossible to change at this point without a major catastrophe or other externally influencing event.
I don't think a major catastrophe is required at all. We're already at the point where a huge chunk of our infrastructure is already in dire need of repair and/or replacement. This is a perfect opportunity for improvement.
The main issue working against this is that the public realm is completely degraded because it only accommodates car traffic. Other ways of getting around are bullied out by high speed, dangerous cars. It's a textbook example of a vicious circle. The fact that there are a few urban areas in the US where owning a car is a drag due to parking issues, should not hold back meaningful improvements and efforts to break out of it anywhere else.
So some critical threshold will occur where it becomes obvious that you have a vast unused road infrastructure, because the total urban fleet has consolidated into something that is physically smaller and literally less road-dependent, and nobody is there to prop up car ownership politically except a few enthusiasts and people living out of their cars. At that point downsizing is imminent everywhere.
It only took 20 years for cars to overtake horses in the industrialized world, and the bulk of it happened in 10. It'll happen faster this time.
It's not an "until the last home in rural Montana is near a subway stop we're not finished" kind of problem.
You don't need a car in NYC, so --- been there done that I guess! But the rest of the US is setup differently, and people like it that way.
People who want to live NYC move to NYC, people who don't, live in places with more space.
Even if that was true (which it does not seem to be, given that the real estate values in neighborhoods most closely resembling the netherlands in the US are among the most expensive in the country) it seems like a moot point. The cities that are built this way aren't financially sustainable and that much car usage is basically incompatible with future life on earth.
That statement assume "people like it that way" applies to all people. Even if 80% of the people preferred the suburbs/rural experience, the fact that city layouts are only available on a small portion of the land means that it will cost more.
You appear to be claiming that Netherlands can achieve car free living because it’s tiny and flat, and yet you point to a U.S. city that has made car free living possible despite being nearly half the size of the entire country of Netherlands, and therefore massively bigger than any Dutch city.
So which is it? Is being tiny an advantage or is it a disadvantage?
Most US urban areas can easily achieve car free living the way the Dutch did. Obviously the suburbs cannot, but that does not prevent American cities from trying.
Have they been exposed to anything else? Be honest. I was raised in the rural midwest where there wasn't even the concept of public transportation; now I live in NYC with no car, and I've never been happier or healthier.
Most city suburbs are chock full of people who used to live further in.
I now vastly enjoy living in my own house where closets are bigger than my flat's living room and driving anywhere I want. Everyone I know in the city is less than an hour away. I shop for groceries every two weeks and sometimes on the way from work. My commute is 20 minutes a day. I visit more different places in a month than in a year of living in the "walkable paradise".
It's nearly impossible to have an objective opinion on something that one has no example or experience of. Medieval peasants would want supermarkets and modern living if they were given the change to experience it.