Hacker News Reader

Comment by dataflow | Hacker News Reader

"Americans love their cars" isn't so much about the cars as it is about the lack of good alternatives. Other countries have great public transportation and good bike lanes and all that... in addition to car ownership. So people can get the best of both worlds. It's only a zero sum game if you want it to be one.

View on HN

Nope. It's universal. The denser the city, the more child-hostile it is.

Just imagine getting into Tokyo subway with a stroller for 2 kids. There's a reason why Tokyo fertility rate is below 1.

As an NYC parent I strongly disagree. But I guess it depends what you optimize for.

I do wish the subway had more elevators. But once you move beyond those early days with a stroller… I have six playground within a twenty minute walk, a giant park a few minutes away. There’s a zoo nearby, the beach (and aquarium) is less than 45 mins on the subway, there are countless museums in the city… all in all its rich in child friendly activities and child-friendly methods of reaching them.

(I’m not there with my kids yet but from talking to older parents: an understated benefit of the city is that kids are able to exercise independence much more easily. They’ll be taking the subway to and from high school, if they want to meet a friend they can just… go. Rather than rely on a parent driving them everywhere)

In a well-designed city, you don't get onto the subway with a stroller during peak hour, because all amenities that your young children need are reachable in 15 minutes on foot (or <5 minutes by bike).

It certainly depends what you call child-hostile and I have no statistics on this. What I do know though, is that one of the denser area in Europe is the famous triangle Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Utrecht, which can hardly be described as child-hostile.

I don't need to imagine anything; I've lived these different lifestyles. Both as a child and as an adult. Have you? What has your experience been?

> Nope. It's universal. The denser the city, the more child-hostile it is.

> Just imagine getting into Tokyo subway with a stroller for 2 kids. There's a reason why Tokyo fertility rate is below 1.

This is a glaring example of hunting for data that supports a preexisting belief, rather than basing beliefs on empirical data.

To point out how absurd this logic is, consider that it fails to consider the fertility rate of Japan as a whole outside urban areas, as well as failing to account for the many other extremely dense cities outside Japan that do have very high fertility rates.

Bigger the city, more expensive housing becomes. That is the real reason for low fertility rates in big cities. People who want children have to be either rich, or move further away.

> Bigger the city, more expensive housing becomes.

That's not universally true; it depends on what housing policies exist.

> That is the real reason for low fertility rates in big cities. People who want children have to be either rich, or move further away.

This is not universally true either.

Nope. I'm anti-urbanist, so I actually analyzed the data :)

The correlation is undeniable for any developed country, especially the US. Developing countries are a bit different they are only now starting the second demographic transition.

> To point out how absurd this logic is, consider that it fails to consider the fertility rate of Japan as a whole outside urban areas, as well as failing to account for the many other extremely dense cities outside Japan that do have very high fertility rates.

LOL. No, they don't: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01975/

I traveled with my kid when he was less than 1 year old in Tokyo. What is the issue with the stroller in the subway? There are always signs of how to get where you need to go using elevators.

While Tokyo has one of the worst fertility rates, it's not like the rest of Japan is doing particularly well. Also, I was staying in Azabujuban and I was surprised by the amount of kids I saw there.

> Nope. It's universal. The denser the city, the more child-hostile it is.

Maddy Novich, https://www.instagram.com/cargobikemomma/, for one, may disagree with you. Interview:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PoKcQRlDGs

She has three kids IIRC.

> Just imagine getting into Tokyo subway with a stroller for 2 kids. There's a reason why Tokyo fertility rate is below 1.

Hong Kong has always been dense, and it used to have a fertility rate of ~5:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINHKG

Further, all US states, regardless of how urban or rural they are, have fertility rates with basically the same slope:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

In every industrialized, Western-ish society rates dropped during the 1970s, regardless of initial or final density.

> She has three kids IIRC.

I haven't seen this in the transcript?

> Hong Kong has always been dense, and it used to have a fertility rate of ~5

I'm going to save this quote. It goes next to: "Yes, Tokyo now is too expensive, but just 10 years ago you could dream about getting a house there".

> Further, all US states, regardless of how urban or rural they are, have fertility rates with basically the same slope:

Yes. Toxic urbanization has not spared the US. But it affected the US less than other countries because the suburbs put up a fight.

> just 10 years ago you could dream about getting a house there

yeah, when comparing with other cities[1] it is way more affordable.

[1] https://www.timeout.com/hong-kong/news/hong-kong-has-once-ag...

As a Tokyo parent I don’t have to imagine because our family and friends do it and it works.

In Tokyo your kids ride the subway by themselves.

Do elevators not solve this?

I don't know, let's simulate it! ;)

LGR - SimTower - PC Game Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ToEDrhxo0

Yoot Tower: The Sequel to SimTower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqNECXCd9iU

I love SimTower to death, but unfortunately being a Win16-based game, it's kind of hard to get working on modern computers. For some reason, trying to run it in Wine works for a couple of minutes before it causes my window manager to spaz out and crash, and I haven't decided what avenue I'd try to get it working well again.

On the other hand, with all the poking I've done at it over the years, I think I now have the most complete knowledge of the save file format for anyone who doesn't have access to the source code.

This style of comment really leaves a bad taste in my mouth regarding forum discussion.

1. Pass off an opinion as fact

2. Posit a straw man

3. Tether an unrelated fact as correlation.

I bet one could wire an llm instructed to such a formula to obsfucate otherwise fruitful public discourse.

> Just imagine getting into Tokyo subway with a stroller for 2 kids. There's a reason why Tokyo fertility rate is below 1.

That's a nice theory but all over the developped world, the countryside has lower fertility rate than the cities.

Rural areas have higher fertility rates than urban areas in the US [1], EU [2], and Japan [3].

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db297.htm

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/demography_2021/b...

[3] https://www.mof.go.jp/english/pri/publication/pp_review/fy20...

> "Americans love their cars" isn't so much about the cars as it is about the lack of good alternatives.

I love to drive therefor I buy a car I love to drive.

America is largely rural. Comparisons to Europe aren't appropriate outside of the proper metros.

America as a physical space is largely rural, but 80% of Americans live in cities according to the census.

You're misreading those stats. The Census doesn't define "city", it defines "urban" vs. "rural".

My "city" of 5K is considered "urban" according to the 2020 census. There are nearly zero services in this "city", only a couple of restaurants, the largest employer is the school district, and it's surrounded by farms and mountain forests. It takes 15 minutes by car to get to the next town over on a two lane highway.

If you want to get to any real city, you're looking at a 30-45 minute drive at highway/freeway speeds.

So yes, there may be more individuals in "urban" areas, but not all "urban" areas are functionally urban. My "urban city" per the 2020 census is no LA, Austin, or Portland.

I mean 200 million people in the US live in the top 50 metro areas. Sure there's a lot of small cities out there but they don't account for much population.

Where do the other 140 million live?

Rural areas can still have very good bike paths; it's actually even easier to secure the right of way.

Where I live the temperature swings from -40 to over 100F with very high humidity every year.

Bicycling with little kids is just not practical for a lot of it, and the nearest bus stop is a four hour walk (12 miles).

Do large cities and suburban neighborhoods deserve public transportation? Sure. Is that a universal answer? No. Not even close. There are farm fields out here larger than many towns. Roads, vehicles, and fast on demand transportation are a necessity for the geographic super majority of the US.

    > Where I live the temperature swings from -40 to over 100F with very high humidity every year.

Some of these HN comments are wild. Where do you live? I struggle to think of a place with a temperature range like that.

Minneapolis does it. As does much of the colder Midwest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com