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From an outside perspective: The US can't even agree that there's a problem (yet). Most people will proudly defend the car dependent way of life. As soon as there is a consensus about needing to change, the process could start and then it will take 30 years. Clock hasn't even started ticking yet, so yeah, lost cause for now.
I was really disappointed in these comments.
NJB has been upfront consistently about how they aren't an advocacy channel and I don't fault them for not jumping into how to fix North America's transit/urban planning issues. That's simply not a focus of their content.
I also don't blame NJB for not wanting to have that fight anymore and doing what he sees as the best move for himself and his family. Good for him.
However saying "just give up" helps absolutely no one, and completely overlooks the fact that millions of people can't simply relocate to the Netherlands like he did whether that be for monetary or personal reasons.
It's exceptionally callous and pessimistic reasoning.
There are lots of pockets across the US and NA where they're getting it right, and it's my belief there's so many more areas where people don't actually know an alternative actually exists.
Change can happen. As others have pointed out in this thread, compare Portland in the 70s to today, NYC is taking strides, cities across the country are revoking parking minimums, and hundreds of other examples show this to be true. NJBs success is built on this shift in thinking.
Change has to happen.
I believe NJB, and similar content, is crucial to getting people to realize how much better things can be if we want them to be. But it will be a slow process that will build momentum over time. There are no silver bullet solutions and no immediate answers.
For similar urbanist content that overlaps NJB, but from an urban planner based in the US I highly recommend City Beautiful
For inspiration
But he doesn’t say to just give up. He doesn’t want to do advocacy for American infrastructure but he clearly states that there are other people that do and that he points people towards those resources
People should give up on North America though.
That's the first line of the quote. If that's not what he meant, it's awfully confusing.
No, Americans are watching the right channel. It is easy to ignore a problem, and to give up on it when you see no alternative. It is much harder to see what could be and then be like: nahhhh, that'll be impossible to achieve, i'll just suffer.
Thats not how humans work!
yeah sure dont give up. fight for people etc etc. but if i had to bet, id bet he is right. call it doomerism. id rather recognize this country has little chance of improving in my lifetime so i could escape somewhere that isn't as terrible. is that privileged? yeah. It is also selfish. But I have one life.
The US serves capital and it is difficult to imagine any case where that changes outside of like government collapse. But then you get called an accelerationist, so lose-lose 🤷
I think what people actually have an issue with here is the bitter, almost preachy tone of these tweets. Which is also fair. I dont think its possible for everyone to be happy when sharing opinions on this topic. And people's opinions change depending on the circumstances.
America is too big to "fix" as a whole, you have to fix it city by city. For example, I spent about 10 years biking around Chicago mostly w/o a car, but to think that same infrastructure can expand all the way to NY is either too unrealistic or just too lofty of a goal to take on. We need to start by focusing on the largest of American cities and work our way down.
Comparing America to the Netherlands isn't fair as the US is 237 times the size of the Netherlands, but we can start making sure that our most populous cities are bikeable/have good public transport.
It's not about the size of the country as a whole. 99% of people aren't making that commute from Chicago to New York, so walkability is a non-issue. Not Just Bikes actually has a recent video on this.
What you say about cities is correct though: they need to be made people-sized, not car-sized. That is, stores need to be closer together, sidewalks more spacious, much less car traffic, areas with storefronts that are easy to access without a car, and outdoor spaces for hanging out. The cities and suburbs are what need to be corrected, not the empty land between them.
Between cities are where high-speed rail would be necessary and extremely helpful in order to take cars off the road and ease traffic congestion.
Incredibly based points. I live in urban hell small town Saskatchewan. I feel the same way.
You don't fix a continent. And he forgot about Mexico, but whatever. You make towns and cities better, here and there, as opportunity permits. And that, my friends, is of course feasible during our lifetimes.
Yeah, there are definitely places in North America where you can live car free (they also happen to be super unaffordable, but that's another story). There's no reason you couldn't try and live there if personal circumstances permit you to. It's not like Europe is 100% bike friendly either, there's a ton of places where not owning a car just isn't practical either.
If only millenials could kill the car market just like how we're killing the {diamond, fabric softener, housing, cable tv, beer, yogurt} markets.
I mean, as a ‘Murica citizen, I’ve given up on the particular area that I live in. But that does not mean that other places won’t improve as more and more people advocate. I simply don’t have faith that the people in my area will advocate
If we all adopted NJB's mindset we'd just have our grandkids asking why WE didn't do something.
For the most part, we win cities and towns, not countries (and especially not big countries like USA, Canada, and Mexico) and certainly not continents. It's way easier to hear about national news than local news, and even moreso local news that isn't from your city. Urbanist communities often portray stagnancy, but that's often not the case, for better and worse. Houston still sucks but it's better than it used to be. Philadelphia is still one of the better US cities for being carless but for a variety of reasons (shitty Democratic mayoral nomination that proves we need to end first past the post, crime related decline in public transit ridership) it is likely to get worse (and to be clear, Houston and Philadelphia are both relatively low-income cities. They do not have the money to make the big transformation Paris did, and that's in spite of Philly literally being designed to be like Paris) Neither of these facts should have the response of "give up."
I got in a fight with somebody on Instagram who decided to do a whole reel on how this is NJB "hurting urbanism". I disagreed with them entirely, but I'm glad to not be seeing his awful points repeated here.
Are there problems with Jason's view? Absolutely, but he's also not speaking on behalf of anyone other than himself. There straight up are massive amounts of the US and Canada that I don't think are ever fixable, short of razing them and restarting. And the problem with advocacy to fix them is that there's so many issues that compound to make them horrible places, that no advocacy group will be able to win anything. Putting in bike lanes only works when there are places to bike to (and we can't even seem to get good bike lanes right here).
He literally closes with "it can get better, but it cannot be fixed within your children's lifetimes". Specifically referring to the US there. He isn't discouraging anyone from advocating, just explaining why he himself does not for NA.
I think he has a point that fixing the US is somewhat hopeless. There are many pieces that go into the puzzle that is the United States and its citizens and together they create such a hostile and undesirable place that is adamantly resistent to change. Not only were our cities literally demolished to make way for the car, the whole idea of driving and what that means is deeply engrained in our culture and identity.
This isn't just about removing stroads and designing some cutesy livable spaces and parks in cities. This is about changing the identity of what it means to be an American. Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
You would loose them at first idea "Imagine going to grocery shop by foot." They would be more disgusted than by bidet.
It’s important for a movement to have both practical, achievable goals and aspirational ones. There’s plenty of room for content from people showing us how good it can be, without really caring about how we get there.
That’s Not Just Bikes niche, and he does a good job at it.
I agreed with every point, and that was before I realized OP's rant was limited in scope to commuting.
lol talking about fixing America within their children's lifetimes and here I am wondering if America will even outlast my lifetime
I bicycled on a fixed gear brakeless bike for four years in Los Angeles during the mid 2010s. The cycling culture there at the time was very anti authoritarian. Very anti car. I got back in a car after realizing my whole life and identity was caught up in the bicycle, which wouldn't have been the case had infrastructure made it feasible for me to not spend most of my time planning around basic trips to see friends and grabbing groceries.
That time in my life made me realize how car centric the US is even with having never biked in other countries. That said, I'd say even if it takes 2 or 3 generations for US infrastructure to change for the better for pedestrians, cyclists, and other forms of public transportation, then the US should push in that direction. It is dire in the US regarding this topic, but the fight needs to continue on.
Phenomenal example of why I dont think this guy deserves much attention
Perhaps the guy himself, but his videos are absolutely a wake-up call for people living in cities in the US.
This is one of the main reasons I don’t really like the channel.
I like the content, I like the ideas presented. That is why I watch it.
I kinda don’t like the guy though.
He also has major grass is greener syndrome in that he has distilled his entire life seemingly to the specific issues he talks about in the video and nothing else.
Like the Netherlands is his main place right? Well they are pretty damn racist over there. Even if it isn’t in your face, it’s always subtle. And to other white people. Romanians and Bulgarians get discriminated against all the time.
Example: My cousin gf (Romanian) applied for housing as as she now has an internship. Over email and the phone she was told yea there are many units available.
First time she goes to talk to them in person, all of a sudden nothing is available. Listings still show housing availability lol.
Her English is pretty good, but she has a clear accent.
So she makes my cousins (her bf) go in person. Except he doesn’t tell them he’s with her. He has better English, more neutral accent. There are units available of course.
Lol.
I’m glad he refers people to other resources to check out, but…..I just don’t like his attitude lol.
I haven't heard such a bad case of racism before to be honest, but you're somewhat right about racism. Although I don't think it's completely ungrounded, there's a lot of immigrants here, out of which not all are such good workers. Although that obviously doesn't say anything about your cousin's girlfriend
Not even trying to say the Netherlands is a bad place or anything. My point was more to bring up the idea that our “just not bikes” friend is really focusing on a narrow list of things, when there are many reasons to not move somewhere new.
His idea that we should all abandon North America is just wild to me lol. There are so many other things to take into account.
My salary would drop by almost half if I got an equivalent job in Europe. Bro, this is why I live in the US to begin with lol.
I was literally about to bring this up. You can tell he's a white dude with his whole "move to Europe" argument. That's only feasible to white people. Europe is way more racist than the US. Imagine how they would react to black and brown inner city residents moving over to Europe.
