This isn’t sarcasm.
Edit: I understand HN really doesn’t like pro car and pro sprawl viewpoints, but downvotes don’t feel well placed.
You posted yourself about the ridiculous subsidies that US suburbia gets so you clearly understand that the way Americans live in the suburbs is completely out of touch with how much it really costs, and very few people if any would actually choose suburbia if they had to bear those costs.
Yet here and elsewhere you also say it’s all a “good thing”, and that Americans are “choosing this”. They really aren’t. Zoning laws are preventing better alternatives from being created, and the subsidies basically force an unnatural amount of people to go that route even if they hate it.
And honestly, most of y’all don’t know any better. Whenever I have Americans over visiting Brussels, it ends in “holy shit I want to move here”.
Last guy I had over was from Alabama. I walked with him from one end of the city to the other in less than a couple hours, stopping everywhere interesting. His mind was blown: it’s the same distance he would have to take his car to go to the nearest pub to his house.
Can we refrain from the reddit-esque creepy "gotcha" of digging through post history of another user instead of addressing the argument at hand?
> You posted yourself about the ridiculous subsidies that US suburbia gets so you clearly understand that the way Americans live in the suburbs is completely out of touch with how much it really costs
Yep.
> and very few people if any would actually choose suburbia if they had to bear those costs.
I don't agree. It's arguable we do already bear much of these costs, as a lot of infrastructure is paid for through development fees (higher housing prices) or through federal & state grants (which we all pay for). I understand cities subsidize suburban areas to some extent, but that's largely from business tax that, again, we all pay for in higher prices.
> Americans are “choosing this”
Look at the pandemic trends, that haven't really reversed since. People left cities and suburban / rural property values shot up compared to big city real estate.
> oning laws are preventing better alternatives from being created
No, they're keeping nice neighborhoods nice low density neighborhoods. Like the inhabitants of those neighborhoods want them to be.
> Whenever I have Americans over visiting Brussels
Something tells me "Americans who want to visit Brussels" has a strong pro-density sampling bias. You're also seeing the initial reaction and not the long term reaction.
> His mind was blown
But would he really live there, or was he just surprised by the different infrastructure?
For clarity, I live right in the middle in one of the most walkable places in the US. In the past, I’ve lived in suburban and rural areas. I understand the pro's of walkability, but I also understand suburbanites and rural folks don't want those pros because of the cons that come with them.
No, own your opinions. You posted something where you literally had to give the disclaimer "This isn't sarcasm", because it reeked of sarcasm. I went through your post history to understand you and your point better. This isn't a fucking gotcha, it's a show of faith and compassion.
> No, they're keeping nice neighborhoods nice low density neighborhoods
Not just zoning laws in your suburbia, zoning laws in the city itself. And no they're not; I'm starting to get the feeling you're not arguing in good faith.
> But would he really live there
I'm helping him organize his move later this year. Does that answer your question?
It certainly comes across that way, from the tone of your comments.
> Not just zoning laws in your suburbia, zoning laws in the city itself.
Yeah, I live in one of those single family walkable city neighborhoods. It’s a nice low density neighborhood. We don’t want it changed, but density advocates that don’t live here have “selected” us for an up-zone campaign. This isn’t a bad faith argument at all… This seems to be the serious lapse in understanding between pro density and pro single family zoning folks.
I’m super glad you were able to help someone move to a walkable area as well! I’m very happy someone discovered they wanted such a lifestyle over sprawl. That said, the vast majority in NA still prefer SF zoning and sprawl. I’m not convinced that will ever change unless sprawl becomes unimaginably expensive.
Right, but that's the core of my point: It is unimaginably expensive, it's just getting subsidized to ridiculous extents. (For the readers unaware of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI)
And saying the "vast majority" prefer it is wrong. They prefer it over the alternatives they have within the United States, not over the alternative possibilities. I'm absolutely not dismissing that some people prefer the suburbian lifestyle over EU-style walkable cities, but saying the majority of Americans do when so few even know what's possible is misplaced in the best possible read of it.
The demand for car-free neighbourhoods is also obvious if you look at what exists, and how exorbitant the prices are due to the high demand and low offer. Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWDFgzAjr1k
This song-and-dance of "Everyone likes suburbia because everyone wants to move there, it's illegal to build anything else because it would then be something else than suburbia, nobody wants the alternative anyway because it's too expensive, it's too expensive because it's in high demand, and it's in high demand because it's illegal to build something else" is like the definition of catch-22.
Yep, that's totally true. But we as a society have chosen to subsidize it. We would not continue to subsidize it if society as a whole didn't find that lifestyle worth the immense weight on government finances.
> but saying the majority of Americans do when so few even know what's possible is misplaced in the best possible read of it.
Perhaps you're correct, but we're getting into conjecture at this point. The single family home on a quarter acre plot is ingrained into the physche of Americans at birth. It's the American dream. Cultural memes like that don't die without a herculean amount of effort. And when this dream is so well built into our urban design, uniformity across the country, the likelihood of it really changing is fairly small. Online spaces are really the first time I've seen anything different from the mainstream viewpoint here--never heard anything like this offline. Even San Francisco won’t upzone. If that isn’t a clear indication of preference, I don’t know what is.
> The demand for car-free neighbourhoods is also obvious if you look at what exists, and how exorbitant the prices are due to the high demand and low offer.
Definitely, we need more of these neighborhoods to satisfy demand. Again, I live in one, and I experience the price increases first hand. I just don't agree with the position folks take of changing existing neighborhoods into "urban, walkable" ones when the residents don't want that. There is a lot of space to try building these communities, especially since many people (even not in tech!) don't need to go to downtown offices anymore.
Streetcar suburbs are pretty awesome, because they allow single family home-style living while maintaining walkability. But density advocates want to see those neighborhoods built up into apartments and townhomes. That's tough for residents to swallow, since they have heavily invested in making their neighborhood the exact low-ish density but walkable, manicured living space they want to be in. And it's part of the appeal of unwalkable / HOA subdivisions, because such up zone conversions are difficult to impossible, or make little financial sense.
Vegetation, old architecture, etc. takes a long time to grow and "settle in". Destruction of backyards and old homes for large buildings that don't fit in with anything else in the neighborhood is not a fun time for existing residents. I don't really care about the property value (well, I would care if my neighborhood completely changed by a forced zoning change and I needed to move). It's about keeping the small town neighborhood vibes I chose to move here for.
> It’s good thing we moved from these old urban walkable designs to a car centric lifestyle, which the vast majority of Americans enjoy.
Your (non-)argument that american lifestyle being car-centric is a "good thing" is VERY different to "I enjoy suburbia and I'd like it not to be destroyed".
Your corner of the earth can remain. If some people are trying to destroy or change it, those people aren't me, nor anyone else in this thread, and they may or may not be "walkability advocates" or what have you that's pretty irrelevant.
The majority of walkability advocates argue for the following:
- US suburbia should not be subsidized as much as it is, it's putting cities in dangerous debt.
- Zoning laws preventing the construction of denser neighbourhoods that aren't skyscrapers should be relaxed.
- City centers should become more walkable and livable, less car-centric
- New constructions and renovations should focus on being human scale, instead of giving massive amounts of land and priority to cars.
It's a good thing because it allows (or, rather, allowed) the supermajority of people to have the "countryside-style" living (while being able to work) that was available only to the wealthy a century ago. At the time suburbia was "invented", people moved out of the crowded cities to these new subdivisions in masses.
> is VERY different to "I enjoy suburbia and I'd like it not to be destroyed". > The majority of walkability advocates argue for the following:
In a vacuum I would agree with you wholeheartedly. However, in practice, urbanists and walkability advocates almost always push increased density on neighborhoods whose residents don't want those changes. I very rarely see advocacy for building new walkable subdivisions, the only advocacy group that's even remotely close to this that I could think of is Strong Towns.
There's no ill intent in my comments, you might be choosing to read them as hostile. I'm just giving you some perspective and examples of real life experience. Also you wanted to understand the downvotes, which is also why I chose to reply.
Frankly, this comes across as a little bit condescending. Another example, a phrase like this from your first response:
> And honestly, most of y’all don’t know any better
Who are "y'all"? Why don't we know any better? This comes across as hostile, like you're coming at this from the perspective of "I'm definitely right and this guy is full of it." I don't believe that's true, but that's how it read to me. Perhaps it's just the challenge of no discernible tone in text.
> Also you wanted to understand the downvotes, which is also why I chose to reply
I still don't quite understand. Downvote != agree, and my comment wasn't rude or disrespectful. It's just not the majority opinion here.
I’m not the person you’re arguing with and I sensed hostility. At the very least contentiousness.
It only "reeked of sarcasm" here because it's the opposite of the HN groupthink.
That's not against etiquette here, it's totally reasonable due diligence
Interestingly though, it seems like there is a trend to expand car alternative options, at least in some areas of the country. There's not much you can do about an exurban bedroom community because density is so low and nothing besides other houses is remotely within a convenient non-car distance. But in places that could be less car-centric, you're starting to see expanded public transit and bicycle infrastructure. And even in what would normally be a suburban area, I've started to see more mixed use development with higher density housing options. And of course more high-end condo type housing in large cities themselves. The fact these all tend to be relatively expensive places to rent or buy a home suggests to me that demand is fairly high, so clearly not everyone loves the car-centric choice.
I also think there is a segment of Americans who love the idea of low-density, car-centric, single family development in theory, but they're running into the reality that trying to build that for everyone means that people are going to have to live increasingly far away from anywhere they want to go. Even if you don't mind driving everywhere, car-centric becomes a lot less fun when everything is a 30+ minute drive away and gas is becoming more expensive.
The funny thing is I live in a city, in transit-oriented, mid density, walkable area, and it takes 30 mins for me to get anywhere interesting outside of my neighborhood. My friends in the 'burbs can hop over to similar amenities in half the time I can.
In apartment buildings that are "transit-enabled", every apartment usually has 1 car, maybe 2, and those cars flood the local street, making quality of life worse for all existing residents. Those apartments are more likely to own cars as we look at places that are more car-centric. In suburbia, an apartment building usually comes with a huge parking lot for all the cars, which isn't great, but it's a little more palpable for people living in the area already.
I could not imagine my childhood when I had to ask my parents to go anywhere.
The price you pay is bigger than you think.