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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

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?

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>> 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.

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.

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