Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)

> Why are we still trying to cram into small spaces? Define "small". Here are some examples houses in an urban area with front yards, back yards, and garages (attached to lanes): * [link] * [link] A little less square footage: * [link] * [link] The Oh the Urbanity channel has a video on the (mistaken) idea that "urban living" = Manhattan / Hong Kong apartment blocks, which is certainly not the case: * [link] Plenty of that was build pre-WW2 in ways that didn't depend on cars: * [link] * ▶ this video Suburban design is the worst of both worlds: lacking the density of the urban so infrastructure is inefficient and so is transportation, and basically bulldozing what makes more rural living nice (closeness to nature).

in “U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums” · View on HN

This take is very historical. The government heavily subsidized highway construction, set requirements for massive amounts of available parking, and through the FHA, provided affordable mortgages to white families to move to the suburbs - these new suburbs often had covenants prohibiting black residents. (The new highways were also often built through black neighborhoods, which were often seen as a "blight", were cheaper to acquire through eminent domain, and whose residents didn't have the political or economic power to put up much resistance.) Traffic policies were set up to maximize traffic flow, which often meant more roads, and wide roads, enabling faster speed. But these make it more dangerous to do anything except drive places. Restrictive zoning laws resulting in purely residential areas with no corner shop, so even something as simple getting some milk requires driving to the store. Certainly some people prefer that lifestyle. But the historical truth is that much of it was deliberate top-down policy to encourage people towards that specific lifestyle, and now it's pretty well locked in. Take for example how residential areas were often designed around cul-de-sacs. The idea was to have quiet streets where kids could safely play. However, once the kids get a bit older, what do they do? They can't drive, so can't even do a simple errand like pick up milk. Instead, one of the parents ends up as a private chauffeur, eg, a "soccer mom". Often this means the family must be

in “Nearly half of non-Tesla EV owners want to go back to ICE” · View on HN

> What happens with most of these, is light rail goes to the city for a few surrounding suburbs with 50-100k people per town. To get to that train station every morning, you need a car. No, you cannot have a bus circle the suburb for an hour to pick everyone up. If the suburb is designed to be walkable then the bus is not needed in the first place: * [link] * ▶ this video Each individual community or neighbourhood can be fairly self-contained with regards to daily needs, and travel between them is done on rail or whatever. One could have all-day, frequent (e.g., every 5 minutes) service with trams (or buses) with-in an area, where you can travel with-in it, but also have connections to commuter rail to go to the Big City if the need arises: * [link] This is how things were generally built post-railway, pre-WW2. (Pre-railroad things were generally all walkable, but long distances being done on horses or boats.)

in “Get a Horse America’s Skepticism Toward the First Automobiles” · View on HN

> This guy makes some good points, but jeez he is so condescending and pretentious. It's really easy for a guy who makes YouTube videos and lives in a crowded European city to pass judgement on people who live lives completely different than his. He has lived in those "completely different" places. He grew up in one of those areas: he moved to a crowded European city. He grew up in London, Ontario ("fake London"), lived in Toronto, lived all over the world. He used to consult all over the world and has visited many cities around the world: see his video "Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston)" for some of the backstory: * [link] After seeing all the different options, and initially trying to settle in Toronto—see his video "Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)": * ▶ this video he and his wife decided to move to Amsterdam to raise their kids. It wasn't random chance that he ended in Europe, but a conscious choice . He looked at the options and chose the one that he though was best. And he has been asked about the 'tone' of this videos: his answer was/is: he doesn't care about how he comes off because (in his opinion) trying to be "nice" to the dumbasses that try to justify the stupidity of car-centric society that is destroying our planet is pointless. Either you have a brain and can see how bad this way of thinking/designing is, or you don't have a brain. He's tired of pussy footing around the (in his view) stupidity.

in “Pickup Trucks: From Workhorse to Joyride” · View on HN

There is a middle point between city center and car-dependent sprawl. We’ve just mostly outlawed building any new places in this in-between style, so the only ones remaining are those that have been this way for well over a century. See “streetcar suburbs”: ▶ this video

in “Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection” · View on HN

> I'm not going to sugar coat it, public schooling is terrible in most dense large cities in America. I don't see how this is relevant to housing, unless you also believe public schooling worldwide is terrible in most dense cities. It's a uniquely American problem that public schooling is terrible in all but the most elite of zip codes. Rural schools suffer the same problem too, and it has little to do with housing (except for, surprisingly, Texas, which allocates funding for schools at the state level). In short, in the US, school quality is not a function of density; it's a function of funding; and in the US school funding is primarily allocated from property taxes. > BTW, I would love to know more about why you feel suburbia destroys local businesses and how it exacerbate homelessness, Suburban zoning (as designed in America ) lead to strip malls and big box dependence. When every store is 10 miles from each other, you end up in a situation where Walmart becomes the only game in town. Secondly, the parking requirements also increase the fixed costs for any business; which limits the type of businesses you can open. You can see this effect in a the types of businesses and restaurants you have in San Jose vs San Francisco. San Jose is a larger city than SF but is far more hostile to local businesses. To be clear, I'm not advocating that every city should be Manhattan. The missing middle housing ( [link] ) has been posted a number of times, and Not Just Bikes ( ▶ this video ) goes

in “Opposition to High Density Development” · View on HN

Its too bad we can't build new places like this, and make this a more affordable option for people. ▶ this video

in “Americans are rethinking where they want to live” · View on HN

Suburbs don't have to be structured around cars! You can have lots of trees, lots of grass, be removed from bustle, and still be able to get around by car. The problem is that zoning rules have essentially regulated these sorts of suburbs out of existence. See: ▶ this video

in “After years of doubts, hopes grow that nuclear fusion is near” · View on HN

It's true. The Not Just Bikes channel has a video on walkable neighborhoods in the US. They're all massively expensive because of the high quality of life. edit: here it is - ▶ this video

in “The Stroad” · View on HN

Do you like having to drive everywhere, to shops with massive parking lots? Or having stroads not safe for your kids to play on where cars blast past at 40mph? Have you been to places where they do density right? Paris comes to mind, as does the urban centers of the Netherlands. Not everyone wants to live in the city, that's cool. But even inherently low density suburbs in the US suck. We used to have walkable streetcar suburbs [0], then the car came along and fucked everything up. [0] ▶ this video

in “Is nuclear power our best bet against climate change?” · View on HN

Yep, you're absolutely right. The parent's youtube suggestion has a video on this too, called streetcar suburbs. ▶ this video

in “Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?” · View on HN

I know you meant the car centric anecdote to be an analogy and not the point itself, but I must nitpick. Public transportation/buses/subways are honestly quite convenient even if you are wrangling 3 kids around. The problem is that public transportation in the US at its best (NYC, Boston) is still a far-cry from actually 'good' public transportation systems. In many places kids as young as 11 are able to independently navigate the city without the parents help when public transportation is well built. If anything, car dependence means that kids take 5 more years (16) before they can be independant and parents will often struggle to meet diverging needs of 3 children when the car is a single bottleneck. Not-just-bikes does a great contrast between North America and the Netherlands to highlight how car-dependence can lead to struggles as a parent: [link] Also, given that most upper middle class families usually have 3 cars (2 for parents work and 1 for a 16-yr old child), if public transport allows you to go from 3 -> 1, that's already a huge plus. It is not like families in European capitals do not own 5 seater hatchbacks. Public transport isn't against cars. It's is against car essentialism. If anything, moving people to public transport will improve the experience of those who need cars by declogging highways. Lastly, car essentialism, highways, the suburban dream and white flight were all distinctly post-WW2 phenomena and heavily subsidized to be that way. It is by no means

in “The end of the pandemic is near” · View on HN

> You don't need tiny apartments to have density. Sure, it starts with "just do row houses" and "missing middle" and in two generations it becomes "we should allow SROs". > [1] ▶ this video That's a propaganda channel that "conveniently" ignores everything against their narrative. These kinds of density still require cars. Unless you want to have a stay-at-home spouse who can do full-time housekeeper duty (like in that Toronto neighborhood).

in “Fixing retail with land value capture” · View on HN

He literally has a video praising a suburb with detached houses, while attacking a suburb with 40-storey condo buildings: ▶ this video Sure, we'd all love to live in spacious mansions with robot butlers. But in the real world, most people live in crappy suburbs, where much of the land is dedicated to useless front lawns and excessive parking requirements that make walking a major PITA.

in “Our self imposed scarcity of nice places” · View on HN