Hacker News Reader

Comment by nox101 | Hacker News Reader

You should consider experiencing living in places with good non-automobile transportation. a few off the top of my head. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, London

Poor people in these cities don’t feel disadvantaged for not having a car. I fact most people in these cities don’t have a car regardless of income level

lived with a car in California for 20yrs, Lived without in some of those other cities for 15. without was way better. When I really needed a vehicle to carry something I could get a taxi.

Trains are slow when poorly designed. good train systems have multiple levels of express trains.

View on HN

Yep, I'm looking to move to one of those places rather than argue with USA folks about how they don't work.

dont poor people in Paris live on the edges of the city far away from the good jobs downtown and are closer to the highways?

I don't know much about European cities but maybe it's easier to build housing there than it is here because that's always the main issue in north america.

The only reason people live in the suburbs where everyone is forced to drive is because a) housing it cheaper and b) its safer (most EU cities probably dont have anywhere near the crime levels of the US) c) its easier to raise kids because decent schools dont have waiting lists and basic stuff like grocery stores are cheaper

I know it's a meme on Reddit but people living outside metropolitian areas aren't there simply because they are pro-car.

I know it’s hard to imagine if America is all you know, but there are other alternatives than endless suburbia.

yes but local government regulation prevents it, zoning and other overt policies manufactured suburbia, not supply and demand, while NIBMYism kills any possible development in urban areas or suburbs on the edges of cities

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265710941_Zoned_Out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw

The poor in Paris indeed live far from the center. These suburbs are dreary like most but the French public transit system is good enough that getting to the center areas from many suburb is still relatively quick.

How are you quantifying “it’s safer”? The evidence doesn’t generally support this statement. What calculation are you using to suggest that?

I don't want to live in a city. It's noisy, polluted, crowded and I really like my small countryside house with plenty of land around it. Lived in a city for 20 years, got fed up with it, despite all of the alleged 'advantages' it offers. I guess I don't deserve decent infrastructure in your world view?

If you’re willing to split the cost with ten people rather than ten thousand, have at.

No, you don’t. plain and simple. Tons of people living together share the costs. the few in the suburbs need to pay for their own infra. They’re not now. The cities are subsidizing the suburbs. that’s not fair.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Your sentiment can be summarized as "Fuck you, I got mine." Hardly convincing.

As an aside, the countryside can survive without cities but cities cannot survive without the countryside. Perhaps consider your dependences before brazenly brushing them off.

There's absolutely no way farmers can be more than subsistence farmers without selling to the masses in the city. Country farmers like to pretend they enjoy living off the land but outside of what they actually sell to make money, they would be losing same amenities as the city that they are not willing to give up.

no, my sentiment is you’re stealing from me and not even aware of it. you’re taking more than your portion.

Cities need farms (a few people and a few roads) they don’t need suburbs (people wasting resources, living large, and stealing tax resources from the cities to subsidize their lifestyle)

I've watched that video and seen it quoted a fair number of times, but I don't see how it jives with the reality of tax collection and spending - at least in my area of residence (ATL). I'd love some hard data on how the city is subsidizing the suburbs.

Instead, the recent trend has been that wealthy areas near downtown (e.g. Buckhead) have been trying to incorporate so that they're no longer subsidizing the rest of the city.

Most of the noise and pollution in cities comes from cars.

I think it's great to live in the country but you should not expect the government to bail you out. That's part of the deal. I myself have thought about buying country property, but as a responsible property owner, I bear the cost for adding infrastructure, and, in return, I get the sole enjoyment. That's the deal. If you want the infrastructure built for you then you need to accept public use of it. That means the government gets to decide how large that public is too.

    > I guess I don't deserve decent infrastructure in your world view?

Do you pay enough taxes to demand it? Probably not.

You can have whatever local infrastructure yourself and your community can afford.

You can have whatever connection to the rest of your state your community and the state can afford and decide upon.

FWiW I've very much been there, I grew up in the most remote corner of a state 3x larger than Texas with a population (then) of under 1 million.

We graded our own airstrip, 150 km of road, maintained our own vehicles and aircraft, fed and managed our horses and camels, loaded and unloaded ships off the mud flats at low tide.

Poor people don’t get to live in those cities where the transportation is good (at least none of those European examples).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com