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Comment by timwaagh | Hacker News Reader

Not just bikes makes it feel like the solution to everything is to be like the Netherlands. In that sense it's a fraud. To some extent yes you should be more like us and offload some of that traffic onto a bike path. To the extent that works and is efficient. But... I have lived here all my life. It is not a solution to anything else. It turns out, bikes do not talk to each other very much either.

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Yes, I have this problem with a lot of the “urbanism” community. I totally understand that there are significant issues with American urban design, but urbanists seem to suffer from the “when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail” syndrome, with increased density and walkability seemingly being the solution to all of the world’s problems.

If anything it’s, probably irrationally, turning me off to urbanism concepts. I think that when something becomes so trendy and so dogmatic, I subconsciously start to feel an aversion to it and assume it’s snake oil, whether that’s true or not.

I was about to reply something similar. The Netherlands is also experiencing a loneliness epidemic, so just density and bikeability are not sufficient answers.

For anyone that's curious about numbers on this, every western country has a long-running social survey that asks how many close friends the respondent has. This data is usually freely available.

The real cause is literally staring everyone in the face who is reading this right now.

But after arriving at destination, people can talk, no? You also dont get bothered with parking and everything is much closer, so less time in traffic, so much less thinking about how to get to destination and more about how nice it will be spending time with friends. But imo trains are better, even less thinking about commute. Living in Zurich for a bit was eye-opening. I took a breakfast with my friends in train, like in restaurant, when we went to mountains. And trains were fast and frequent, like one in 15-30min towards our destination

You still need people to talk and time slot to meet. Same scheduling issues.

I used to live in downtown of my 600k city. Moved back to outskirts of the same city. Driving is the smallest issue to meet.

Reading those discussions from afar, it feels like Americans are using urban sprawl as a scapegoat. While it's a problem everywhere else too. Even if you take away urban sprawl and driving, the problem will be there.

Well, idk, in my case it was really the transport. In the past I've lived in same area with my friends and we occasionally went to shop, walk together. In covid, I've moved in the opposite part of the city, with bus it'll take me 30 mins to arrive to them, with car, maybe 15-20, but taxi is expensive and I don't own a car+ the hassle to find parking. As result we met only on special occasions like bday or at some specific places in between but it's also not that frequent.

Did nothing else really changed in your or your friends' life?

I could say the same about my socialising now and a decade ago. But in reality a lot of other things happened - kids, parents getting old, mortgages and housing to take care of, stable jobs with more responsibilities, more resources (both time and money) spent on healthcare... It all adds up.

No, literally nothing else changed, no kids, no other job(except me, but i would say I more time free after switch). We are about~25yo each so, yeah the distance is the only thing that changed. In the past we lived in 10 min walking distance, now 30 mins on bus that doesn't have dedicated lanes and is getting pretty full pretty often. Like we are still friends and we try to meet on some occasions, but imagine in the past- 'lets go for a walk after work'-'yeah, no prob, meet in 5 mins'. Now it's -'im so tired, i don't think i want today(20-30 mins to destination+ the same to be back home), maybe next time' just thinking about how tiring it is to spend 40 mins total on transport is already killing the will to meet

Trains are great if they go where you need to go. But of course their high infrastructure requirements mean they won't always. Still to visit my friends i usually take the car as they don't live in the same city and housing near the station isn't cheap.

You can't deny that residential communities here in NL are quite different to those even in other European countries, let alone the main Anglosphere countries (US/UK/Canada/AU/NZ). The bikes help a lot sure, but there's more things here than the bikes that contribute to the sense of community, and it does work. (It's obviously not perfect)

Nothing is showcasing it works. We are on the downward path just as much as every other country, being more and more atomized and pulled away from friends and family due to social and economic incentives.

Dutch stereotype is to be 'friendly' outward but always keep people who you aren't close to at a distance. That attitude comes back to bite you when you move away past your early 20s or use your work life as your social lifeline in today's work environment. If it wasn't for social services, the consequences would be far worse. But those social services are also contributing to what keeps the majority from staying close together in the first place.

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