Millenials can't afford to buy either a McMansion, or a condo in a city. They can afford to rent an apartment.
> Manhattan is popular, aspirational even, for a reason. Every generation before the 1950s was built by gradual densification.
Yup. And there's a reason why the US became the world leading power with unparalleled quality of life after 1950-s.
Affluence definitely followed the conscious policy decision to build a network of freeways and highways, with a focus on suburban lifestyle.
To expand a bit on that, car-oriented cities allowed US citizens to:
1. Have shorter commutes than Europeans. This _still_ holds true!
2. Be able to access more businesses within the "reasonable commute" range.
> 1. Have shorter commutes than Europeans. This _still_ holds true!
> 2. Be able to access more businesses within the "reasonable commute" range.
Citation? That's the opposite of everything I've seen here and elsewhere; Americans seem to see an hour-or-more commute as normal. Car-based cities give you great commute times until those pesky other cars start commuting and filling up the roads.
For the current state of affairs: Commute time in Paris: 32 minutes, commute time in Berlin: 31 minutes, commute time in London: 47 minutes. US average: 27 minutes.
For reachability: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2
> Car-based cities give you great commute times until those pesky other cars start commuting and filling up the roads.
Even bad car-based cities are generally _better_ than the best transit-oriented cities. Even with congestion and decades of neglect, forced by anti-people pro-urbanism crowd.
Just look up commute times and think. I suggest looking up Houston, TX (so-called "car hell") and comparing it with major European cities.
If Paris’ airport built two new runways and they both filled up with international flights immediately, would this be taken as evidence that their construction was an irresponsible waste of scarce public investment? It would rather be celebrated as a validation of forecast utility to the public and to the economy. Same for urban condo buildings filling up. Yet American traffic jams are gross and different from runways? How so?
> Affluence definitely followed [as well as preceded; but, in any case, a set of feedback loops, not simply affluence preceding networks’ construction —-Ed.] the conscious policy decision to build a network of freeways and highways, with a focus on suburban lifestyle.
> To expand a bit on that, car-oriented cities allowed US citizens to:
> 1. Have shorter commutes than Europeans. This _still_ holds true!
> 2. Be able to access more businesses within the "reasonable commute" range.
I don't think it does though? Figure 4 on their link shows the transit-oriented cities in Europe and China doing a lot better on that metric than US cities.
The axes have different scales, look again. The Figure 4 shows that the US cities cluster around 500000 jobs accessible by car. And cars are the main mode of transportation in the US.
Figure 3 shows that European cities cluster around 100000-200000 jobs accessible by public transit.
It's also true that many European cities are actually competitive when you do use a car. But we're looking at transit vs. car use.
Within each graph the scale is the same, and the European/Chinese cities do significantly better (are higher up the graph) than the US cities. (I do wonder why London and Paris are missing from Figure 4).
> It's also true that many European cities are actually competitive when you do use a car. But we're looking at transit vs. car use.
They're better than competitive; their trendline for job accessibility is 2x or more better than the US one. Car-oriented city design results in much worse job accessibility, even for car users.
Do you think urbanization cancer will spare you, if you have an Eiffel Tower in your country? Paris metro area is about 1/6-th of France in population, and it's growing. That's why commute times will keep getting worse, while commutes themselves are going to get more and more miserable.
The US average commute time is weighted down by large coastal cities, that are growing like a cancer, following anti-human urbanist policies. If you look at smaller cities in the US, then it's basically a commute heaven. E.g. Salt Lake City is at 20 minutes, Boise ID is at 15 minutes.
> For the current state of affairs: Commute time in Paris: 32 minutes, commute time in Berlin: 31 minutes, commute time in London: 47 minutes. US average: 27 minutes.
As the other reply said, misleading to compare a city average with a national average.
> For reachability: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2
As far as I can see that's showing reachability, including by car, is much better in transit-oriented cities in Europe and China than in the US? Why do you think that supports your argument?