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Comment by Invictus0 | Hacker News Reader

I honestly think that most Americans have not traveled enough to realize there is a better way. Only 30% of Americans even have a passport.

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Most of my friends -- a spread of PhDs, teachers, well-off tech workers, and blue collar workers -- have barely left the USA. I really enjoyed the time I spent in the UK for a college semester. It permanently ruined the US city experience for me -- even NYC is not as walkable as the small-ish city I lived in.

When my friends do leave the USA, it seems to largely land them at resorts, or guided tours, or other "on rails" tourist experiences that disconnect them from the day-to-day life of people who live in those places. Meanwhile I visit cities to explore on foot. I plan on doing some European bike tours soon to experience some of the small towns and countryside that I've previously missed out on.

Considering how much my friends and family love the walking and public transit experience at Disney World, I wonder how much they would enjoy just walking and taking public transit around other cities around the world. It's really not that different.

> When my friends do leave the USA, it seems to largely land them at resorts, or guided tours, or other "on rails" tourist experiences that disconnect them from the day-to-day life of people who live in those places.

I share your distaste for resorts and guided tours, but if a person can only get one week off, these are safe options.

For my first real trip, I had to quit my job to get sufficient time off. They would not allow time off even without pay.

Visiting Chicago and NYC were what woke me up to it. Those places are the closest you can get to a car-free lifestyle here. Yet they're still very pedestrian and bike-hostile areas.

Lack of any mandated paid vacation/holiday days is probably a large factor. This graph makes the difference with other countries stark:

https://cepr.net/report/no-vacation-nation-revised/

30% of people can be a lot of people, expecially in a political environment where there are only 2 parties, and the district lines are optimized/gerimandered.

Also, you really don't have to travel to realize that life can be different elsewhere. In fact, if you're going for an out-of-touch idealized belief, not traveling is almost a benefit: see "Paris syndrome".

> Also, you really don't have to travel to realize that life can be different elsewhere.

I think you sort of do, or at least I did.

I like to think I realized quite well that life could be wildly different throughout the world - it's what motivated my initial travels.

Hearing about how the Netherlands does transit vs. actually feeling and experiencing it immersed over a month of living there is just an entirely different level of understanding.

In this example I went from thinking the NL style transit is pretty neato, to now thinking that transportation is one of the most fundamental pieces that forms a society and it's future. It's not just energy and moving mass around. Get transportation wrong and you will fundamentally break society in unexpected ways.

30% is 100 million Americans. Also, a passport was not required to travel in North America (not sure if that is still the case). I traveled throughout Mexico and Canada before ever having a passport, for example.

I take it you have not travelled in some time? This hasn't been the case since "9/11" when the rules were changed. you need a passport to travel between USA/CA (not sure about Mexico but i would assume it needs a passport too?).

I routinely travel internationally. I simply wasn't conflating what I do at the border with a requirement. I regularly crossed the northern and southern border without a passport in the 1990s.

Some US states have an 'enhanced drivers license' which allows travel to Mexico/Canada via car or boat. However, you need a passport to fly into those countries.

Consider that America has around 45 million immigrants, most of whom probably haven't seen much of the world either. Assuming all those immigrants have no native-born children (an obviously terrible assumption), then we have 50 million passports for 250 million native-born Americans, a 20% rate. Compare that to germany's 90% rate.

Sure... but compare the size and location of Germany with that of the United States. It's probably not all that sensible to compare rates here between countries, except perhaps European countries against one another.

I think this is a pretty big assumption that doesn't really consider that not all people prefer densely packed urban environments.

I've visited Europe multiple times and lived in Austria for 7 months. I loved seeing new things that were so different from my midwestern home. Using the train was awesome, the ease of access to get good quality food, walkability etc.

However, returning to Europe in my 30s I don't have that same feeling anymore. Those cities give me anxiety now. There are far too many people in one area. Everyone lives in tiny apartments where they have to be careful about who they disturbed. Almost no one owns houses, much less any land to go with those houses. They're completely reliant on public transportation. There's a massive lack of access to any real nature. Everyone just seems really sheltered and most of them don't appear to have any knowledge outside of urban environments. There's also a very elitist attitude that their way of life is somehow better, even though most of them couldn't survive a day without having easy consumer access to everything.

Further into adulthood now I much prefer to live outside a city with some land and the freedom to do what I want on it. I can take my car into the city and visit whenever I want. However, I get to live outside of it with much better access to nature and imo a mentally healthier environment than a packed city. Large cities just seem packed with consumerism to me. People do nothing but go around and pay for products all day. Pay to eat, pay to have coffee, pay to go to a show. I'll visit and live elsewhere.

Where, with a landmass the size of the US, in the world is it done better than in the US?

If the crusaders on this mission want to carve up SF/Seattle/Portland/DC/NYC to build whatever it is you think is better, please do. Good luck. You can't even build housing in SF, but go ahead. Redesign the cities to be whatever you want.

I'm completely done with cities and I'm not alone, never again to return. Even 78 people per square mile, where I am now, is slightly too many. Once the kids are done with school I'll reassess, and probably move even further out.

Do you realize how massively big the US is and how incredibly diverse of an experience you can have just traveling to the next state over? Having a passport/leaving the country isn't a requirement to see that there is a better or different way to live.

The entire US is built around cars so I don't think you'd be exposed to a different way of living in that aspect, unless you're a brave American tourist visiting Chicago/NYC willing to learn and use the subway.

The US is incredibly big and diverse. The world is bigger and diverser.

I hate this argument because its always used to jutsify staying in the US.

do you realize how homogeneous the US is when compared to the diversity you get between different countries? and yes, I've been to all 4 corners and the midwest. There's more in common between LA and the midwest than between LA and southeast asia for example.

The equivalent drive in europe or asia will net you a rapidly shifting palette of languages, customs, holidays and foods. Not to mention the added perspective of seeing another countries politics and how it puts into perspective out own obsession with a two party system.

I've traveled to plenty of cities where many/most people don't own cars, in the US and Europe. I still have zero desire to live in such a city.

Where in the US have you visited where many or most people don't own cars? In the USA, there is one such city -- NYC -- where MOST residents don't own a car. Every other city has over 90% car ownership.

Cool. No one is forcing you to live in those places.

The entire premise of this thread is to essentially make as much of the US like those places, from a transportation perspective, as possible.

Same, everyone has this loaded idea that as soon as you visit a city out of the US it's a utopia. "Walkable-city" often means taking 2-4 different forms of transportation to get from A to B, and if you're going to 5 different places in a day before coming home(say class, the gym, the grocery store, a specific store for that one thing you need today, then dinner with a friend) it means carrying 1-2 bags with you all day and making 15 different metro line transfers, buses, etc and dealing with inclement weather and rush hour crowds where you can't get a seat. Have you ever been in a city with one of the largest metro systems in the world and had to physically push and get pushed into a rush hour metro car that's so packed you can't even get your phone out of your pocket on a ~38C day?

I have a feeling a lot of this sentiment is driven by digital nomads who booked a hostel next to a wework and do nothing but go to a coworking space for half the day then sightseeing and get the impression that everyone lives like this. I've stayed in more than one world class city and if you can afford it you eventually just start taking a lot more ubers than you'll care to admit.

Despite living in major US cities for much of my adult life, I do not enjoy ride shares. I far prefer walking, biking, or public transport. Even if it's hot out, or raining, or even snowing. As long as I'm not in danger of being run over by cars, I'm happy.

I don't think all cities outside of the US are utopias. I just think you can walk around more comfortably. I've taken public transport plenty, thank you, and I know it's not always as convenient as taking a car. I don't mind carrying around a backpack with items in it, or putting a pannier on my bike.

> I have a feeling a lot of this sentiment is driven by digital nomads who booked a hostel next to a wework and do nothing but go to a coworking space for half the day then sightseeing and get the impression that everyone lives like this. I've stayed in more than one world class city and if you can afford it you eventually just start taking a lot more ubers than you'll care to admit

Please don't paint everyone who wants car alternatives with the same brush.

Anyone who would stoop to the level of constant ride sharing doesn't like public transportation, biking, or walking. I loathe ride shares as much as I hate cars. They exacerbate almost all car problems in US cities.

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