this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Distance. An hour commute or a 20 minute trip to the grocery store. We killed walkable neighborhoods so now here we are. Trapped.
But we can't have 15 minute cities because...that's tyranny somehow?
Too much democracy! Tyranny of the majority!
15 minute cities are about as organic as "two weeks to flatten the curve". There's a reason they don't exist, it's not a practical idea. Just like every other idea children come up with.
That used to be the model. Go look at old pictures. Those people were not walking hours to get groceries.
Correct, they'd use a horse or a mule. Cars are an improved horse. Walking and biking are hobbies at best.
No. Just no. You can easily create a mechanical advantage greater than that of a horse with pedal power. And walking is still the majority way to get around in countries that aren't "western".
Here ya go.
bro forgot rickshaws exist and calling other people regarded.
Wtf are you on? I grew up in a European city. I never got a driver's license or even learned to ride a bike. Everything was within walking distance of my home or of a subway station. Lived like that for almost 30 years. Only when I moved to the US in a suburb I had to get a car because nothing was within reach.
Yeah, except all of those old European cities and newer Soviet built ones had (and in most cases still have) everything close to 15 minutes away.
Oh boy lmao
Nice bait.
15 minute cities do exist, just not in the US. Admittedly, the concept doesn't always work for work related commutes, because some businesses just need lots of infrastructure away from residential areas. But there are plenty of cities where grocery stores, gyms, restaurants, doctors etc. are within biking or walking distance.
Start yelling at your city legislators then. Force them to change how the city zones so things are closer together. It will take a couple decades of work, but you have to be apart of that change for it to happen.
Oh I do but for as much as conservatives whine about California it's not really a progressive state. More like a solid liberal bastion of performative politics. Where they'll talk about banning guns from state property like it's going to solve firearms deaths and just don't look at how we're treating homeless people...
That's fair - I wish you luck in your town hall meetings and marchs. Local change is always the fastest.
Open your own grocery store. Or allow others to do so.
I would if I could. But I can't beat Walmart prices an hour away on Transit.
That's why you don't see 15 minute cities anymore. Capitalism already figured out that a few large stores allow you to hire more efficient numbers of employees, buy more for less, stock better variety, pass along some of the savings to customers and still make more profit than building lots and lots of repeated commercial infrastructure throughout residential areas. A return to that model would require more employees in low paying service jobs, and would sacrifice lower prices and better variety. Ironically, it would be far faster to use a car to skip from store to store to look for the best deals and the specific brands you want. I suppose we could also get rid of capitalism at the same time, but I'm not holding my breath. As much as I like the idea of walkable infrastructure, it comes at a cost that I am not sure many would be willing to pay.
It's very weird that it works all over Europe, but for some reason it's too expansive for America. It's almost like it's not an inevitable course of actions really actually.
Might have a wee something to do with the cost and availability of large parcels of land in and around cities in Europe versus North America. If Walmart thought this was a cost-effective approach, they'd be doing it, else they would likely be sued by their shareholders. To be clear, I am not making a value judgement on whether this should be the case.
Yeah, it is indeed a good approach for Walmart. They get to crush the competition due to their size and the economy of scale, be effectively a monopoly, and convince everyone that it's not only logical and inevitable, and the result of something normal, but good actually.
The question is, is it good for people who aren't Walmart shareholders?
If transit gets dense enough then isn't it walkable in an indirect manner?
I suppose, but then it isn't really any different than what we have now in the best of our cities worldwide. Unfortunately, it seems very few cities actually have the resources and the political capital to make that work.
Yeah. But until we deal with the affordability problem walkable cities aren't going to be a thing because it will be too expensive.
It's the other way around. Cities in US are expensive now because there is not a lot of those compared to the amount of people who would like to live in them. If you allow builders to build more walkable cities they will become more affordable. And the scale is only part of it, the fact that city brings revenue to the government and suburbia isn't is a big part too.
I agree that we need to keep going on walkable cities. I just don't think we're going to see the investment in small business we need until we properly regulate corporations.
A car cuck utopia
You can do what I did and move to another country. It just takes a lot of time, work, and money to get there (though money can accelerate the former two, in some cases).
I'd love to. And the brain drain is already beginning. College is cheaper and just as good over seas. That's always the first stage because you never get all the kids back.