Hacker News Reader

> Meanwhile, instead of punishing cars for simply existing and providing good utility to the city, why not just build better pedestrian infrastructure that's actually separate and protected from the road?

Cars and their supporting infrastructure often take up a vast amount of space, which makes walking less attractive as all distances are greater as a result.

View on HN

Another way of saying this is that because physical space in the city is a scarce resource, the allocation of infrastructure for cars and infrastructure for people is a zero sum game.

A zero sum in terms of space, but definitely not in terms of efficient utilization, capacity etc.

yeah, the US solved this by expanding out to suburbia. Because we just have so much damn space and cars let us utilize more of that space.

Of course, the other thing people in this community may look over is that suburbs are often a fallback when you can't afford a dense urban area. I'm in an LA suburb and renting in LA would be over twice as expensive if I moved down there. Even if downtown LA became walkable, most of the LA county wouldn't be able to afford that living.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com