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Comment by PunchyHamster | Hacker News Reader

I feel that's more "US public transport being bad"

Right as an American this reads like "American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing etc..

I'm with you. Tokyo is incredible. It's the only large city I've ever been to where I left thinking, "I'd love to live there."

Transportation in Japan is a whole other level compared to my experiences in Germany and Austria.

I've never been to England, though, so can't make that comparison.

London and Berlin felt pretty comparable to me, with the airport situation better in London but the biking situation better in Berlin (marginally).

Tokyo is just on another level entirely.

You should visit Taipei.

> American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing

30% of all Americans have never left the North Western hemisphere.

Since I can't edit, that should say 70% :) I reversed the figures

There are 20+ countries in the Northwest hemisphere.

I think the fundamental issue here is that many in America don't actually want dense cities, public transit, and more generally shared spaces. I, for one, would not want to live in condo when I can live in a house. When enough people want this, you end up with "urban sprawl" and one or more cars per house.

You make it sound like the construction of US cities were not at all lobbied by the auto industry back in the day and that urban sprawl was exclusively people's choice.

Genuinely dense cities basically don't exist in the U.S. The average "dense" city downtown in a U.S. city is broadly comparable to the worst car-dependent suburban or exurbian hellscapes of Europe and East Asia, and things only go worse from there. City downtowns near the East Coast are an exception since they were built in colonial times or thereabouts, so when you think "dense" you should really think of e.g. the densest boroughs in NYC.

Yes and that reflects historical and cultural factors. Cities in Europe were largely built in the preindustrial era. In the U.S. there is just so much more space; it does not make sense to build small or dense. Transportation habits just reflect this.

It doesn't matter what most Americans want, because most urban land is zoned in such a way that single-family houses are all that is legal to build. The extremely high prices of housing units in central urban areas suggest that demand for dense cities, public transit, and shared spaces greatly exceeds the artificially-restricted supply.

Here in Seattle, you can basically see the zoning boundaries as you drive around the city, because development always goes right up to the edge, as hard as it can. Without the arbitrary limits imposed by the zoning code, there would be a whole lot more condos built (and lived in!), and those edges would be a lot softer, shaped by ebbs and flows of market demand rather than the sharp lines of law.

A big problem in America is the entrenchment that is happening. People are becoming so polarised there is no common ground left for discussions and people aren't open to new ideas or thinking.

I genuinely feel I can't even discuss this with many Americans. They stalwartly believe car culture is superior in every single aspect, any deviation from this narrative is simply met with 'you don't understand'.

I recall in Ireland they asked an American on public TV what he thought of one of the few pedestrians only streets in Dublin (Liffey Street). He pointed out that he would be sorry for the loss of the trade on that street for the business involved compared to if cars were allowed to drive on it. It's then pointed out they make way more money since the transition as it's a city centre location with enormous footfall.

He just counters that's not possible and cited some example in the US.

As I understand it the US car lobby had a big hand in designing modern America, in such a way that for most cities it really isn't possible to use anything else.

On the other hand a lot of European cities were laid out in the time of horse and cart.

A lot of European cities still have Roman centres.

Indeed - and some are even older. I believe romans still had horse and cart.

Yeah, I'm aware they didn't have self-driving cars yet, lol. I was just being more specific about the timeline.

There was a big argument on my local (American) Nextdoor recently because someone encountered a line of cars on a road that had recently had a bike lane added to it. People were outraged about bike lanes. And not just in the sense that they had to pay (via taxes) for something they didn't feel was useful. The fact that the lane even existed was an affront. They seemed to actually believe that the bike lane caused delays for cars merely by existing.

How dare you get in the way of my fat ass in my fat-ass SUV. Almost spill my capuccino that I bought at the drive-thru because I couldn't get my fat ass off the car.

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