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Comment by jader201 | Hacker News Reader

> It's fucking crazy that we do this. I don't know how much more emphasis I can put on it.

I usually jump on a soapbox whenever I see so much support for getting rid of cars on HN, so here goes:

Not everyone lives in a city.

I’m 100% in agreement for all of these arguments, with the precondition that you live in the city.

But many prefer and enjoy distance from neighbors, commerce/industry, and enjoy being surrounded by a more natural environment.

And many of these comments seem to completely ignore folks that prefer a quieter lifestyle over being surrounded by everything.

This is especially true as we move more towards remote work — if people are able to work out of their home, a percentage of those will want their home -- where they spend a large majority of their life -- to have some privacy and pleasant surroundings. Which means distance. Which means cars.

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Almost no one is actually surrounded by a natural environment. The suburbia that pervades in America is surrounded by deeply un-natural roadway, parking, gas stations, strip malls, and big box stores. For most people, any time you're outside your home you're in a thoroughly human-crafted world. The question is to what ends that craft is directed. Too many places are optimized for the convenient operation of cars above all other concerns. In an increasingly remote world, we should be less willing to sacrifice other goods on the altar of transportation.

Even supposing that your surroundings are already very pleasant to you, wouldn't you be better able to revel in their pleasantness without the enclosure of a car or the urgency of a highway?

It's interesting that your first assumption is suburbia and not an actually rural setting.

It's a valid assumption to make. Most people live in suburbia, relatively few are truly rural. A little less than one in five, according to [1]

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america...

In a rural setting, you surroundings would normally be working farmland. Nothing particularly natural about vast rectangles of genetically engineered crops dotted with heavy equipment and industrial buildings. Better to look at landscaping designed for one's aesthetic enjoyment than for economic production.

>> But many prefer and enjoy distance from neighbors, commerce/industry, and enjoy being surrounded by a more natural environment.

> Almost no one is actually surrounded by a natural environment.

He didn't say "a natural environment." He said a "more natural environment," which I hazard to guess means stuff like more grass and trees and less concrete outside the window.

Oh, and BTW: I live in surburbia and actually have a patch of legitimate forest in my backyard.

>more grass and trees and less concrete

I would challenge the degree to which contemporary suburban sprawl developments actually deliver on this promise: wander around any of them, your field of view is going to be dominated by a wide road making a sweeping curve, huge driveways, imposing garage doors, and (maybe, if any houses are visible behind the garages) giant masses of vinyl siding. There's at least as much inorganic material in the vista as in any Manhattan streetscape, it's just the ugly and utilitarian kind, designed to facilitate efficient through-travel and car storage instead of something designed to be pleasant or inviting to people in itself.

You can have a nice patch of nature privately in your backyard, and perhaps in dedicated parks and preserves, but the connective tissue between all that stuff is remarkably hostile to any mode of engagement besides passing through at speed.

As we figure out how to live sustainably with ten billion people (or wherever the population will cap out) with higher and higher standards, perhaps certain people’s preferences isn’t what we should optimize for. Maybe if you want to live far away from others, you’ll have to bear the true cost of the externalities associated with that. So yes, you can live in the sticks, but running that car of yours is going to cost you. If you won’t or can’t pay for that, stay in the city with everyone else and live efficiently.

I'm tired of subsidizing rural people, the communities are unsutainable, particularly in the west where they have extreme fire risk.

Where did you get this insane idea that subsidizing actual farming and agriculture is a bad idea? Do you not like eating or being alive? I agree the subsidies are probably not 100% efficient but the intent is to keep you alive in times of famine or worldwide catastrophe.

We don't live in a planned society and many many people have made mistakes about where to farm / raise livestock in the US. The good news is they usually eventually give up if the place is unsuitable, sometimes there are outsize subsidies that allow bad practices to go on forever, but in general it does correct itself. That land eventually (especially in non desert areas) returns back to its norm, where badly planned cities will take a much longer timescale to return back to nature.

I guess that was overly broad. Many rural residents (most?) are not farmers...

I see nothing wrong with that.

But it's exactly how you said:

> want their home -- where they spend a large majority of their lives -- to have some privacy and pleasant surroundings

This applies to people living in cities too. I don't want to have to be afraid of death or serious injury whenever I cross the street.

Please leave your car at the park-and-ride outside.

I think most people, including the person you replied to would agree with this. The key is that people shouldn’t be required to have a car to go everywhere.

By increasing density in some places, we would decrease density in other places, allowing people to have a choice in how they want to live. But in huge swaths of America, there is basically no diversity in density. You literally can’t live somewhere that’s walkable or bike-able to grocery stores and restaurants, and you can’t live somewhere that’s more rural than a suburb (because it’s all suburbs).

Even in non-cities I’ve lived in places where it’s perfectly fine to walk or bike to do my daily chores, but to have a car for longer trips. But if the only options are a Walmart 10 miles away, and a Home Depot 15 miles away from the Walmart, it’s just not possible.

I really wonder what people mean by "rural" but I suspect what most people are saying is "suburbs are where I want to live, but I want everything as close as it is in the city.

Because in my "town" which is something like 10k, we're 30 miles from the nearest "bigger town" and 45 from the nearest international airport, but I can walk to Walmart in 30m or walk to Ace Hardware in about the same (though in a different direction).

So they do exist, they just don't exist where people want them to.

To me "rural" is mile long dirt driveway at the end of a gravel road that is ten miles from the nearest paved road, let alone the nearest services.

Nobody is suggesting we prevent people from living away from cities. People are talking about making North American cities human-friendly instead of car-centric. Also, the more people live in cities, the more the countryside is left wide open - for people who want to live there.

If you want to see how you can have your cake and eat it too, watch some of this guys videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQE_5MFCekg

Small towns are great places for bike paths and bike infrastructure. If you don't believe so, then I suggest visiting the Dutch countryside.

Large networks of large roads are not financially sustainable [1]. I can only assume this is more the case the more rural you get. Asking for more of the current American style of car infrastructure may not even work, depending on the specifics.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

Rural areas are actually cheaper because they do NOT have paved roads every 500 feet or so. The local county pays for all of the rural roads (maintenance, plowing, etc) and the little town pays for the roads in town; federal funds are only used for the interstate and some connecting ramps, etc.

What may not be sustainable is city-like road patterns with suburban densities.

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