@BrentToderian Or you could just show the layout of an apartment complex, which is this exact same thing, except the use case makes sense.
@urlyman @BrentToderian Maybe in the UK, where roads descend from ancient footpaths, it makes sense. But over here in the US, cities were designed around roads, and nothing is in walking distance. I'm not biking miles through 120 degree heat index to go to the grocery store, and neither is anyone else if they don't have to.
The biggest polluters are big industry. Trying to shift the burden to the average Joe is missing the point.
Besides, your graph there includes shipping and airplanes in the "transport" category, which won't go away if people drive less. If anything, we'll need a *more* robust logistics network to get goods closer to people who don't drive.
@LouisIngenthron @BrentToderian I’m not trying to shift the burden anywhere. Brent’s pointing out that, *with the benefit of hindsight*, the way we’ve allowed car culture to dominate urban design is dumb.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but *not using it* to consider how we might do things differently to confront a rapidly approaching era of brittle energy supply would be obtuse
@LouisIngenthron @urlyman @BrentToderian > in the US, cities were designed around roads, and nothing is in walking distance.
And that's exactly what this post questions. Have you really missed its point *that* badly??
I live in a big city, and I walk 5mins to a shopping mall with a supermarket, there's a couple of small grocery stores and two bicycle shops, numerous doctors, dentists, and apothecaries within 10mins, a cinema within 15mins…—and a whole city reachable by public transport.
🤷♂️
@LouisIngenthron @urlyman @BrentToderian Have you considered that a new mixed use development down the street from you could support a grocery store on the ground floor, with a stack of apartments above it? Density can bring amenities closer to you, making your life easier to improve as well!
@AGTMADCAT @urlyman @BrentToderian I have, and that would be nice, but it still wouldn't eliminate the necessity of a car.
@LouisIngenthron @urlyman @BrentToderian Making cars unnecessary in current suburbs isn't a 10 year project, it's a 100 year project. It takes time to undo nearly a hundred years of car-first infrastructure. The first step is to stop making things worse, and then we can go from there.
Let's say you had that grocery store a block away, what percentage of your car usage could that replace? 5% maybe? If everyone can do that, it's like removing 1 in 20 cars from the road. That's massive.
75 years from now you end I will probably be gone, but whoever lives where you do might be celebrating breaking ground on a new train station or climate controlled bike network or who knows what else. Our responsibility isn't to figure out that stuff now, it's to lay the groundwork so that one day stuff like that is possible.
@LouisIngenthron @urlyman @BrentToderian
I walk to the grocery store.
I live in southern Arizona.
@LouisIngenthron Now try it without a car, and you'll realize it's still a monument to the stupidity of mankind to build a living space around a car in the first place.
@BalooUriza No, without the car, it becomes a ruin, because people can't get to work, so they can't pay their rent, so they get evicted.
@LouisIngenthron @BalooUriza I've lived for 2 years in a 4M+ population city and 11 years in a 1M+ city without a car, and it was no problem at all because the cities had proper transport systems. Car centric urban design is lazy, inefficient, harmful to people and the environment, and inhospitable. It is perfectly possible to build better city infrastructure, and gradually improve the existing.
@LouisIngenthron @BalooUriza I'm not saying people should be blamed for needing a car. It's a problem with planning. I now live outside a much smaller city, without a good public transport system, and I need to have a car again. So I agree we shouldn't put the burden on the "average Joe" as you said in another reply. This is a problem to be solved higher up, and the last city I lived in made good progress on it over the last decade.
@LouisIngenthron Good. Car centric apartment complexes aren't something that should exist in the first place. Redevelop them to something that actually works.
@BalooUriza Most places can't even get bridges repaired, but you want entire cities to be redeveloped? Lol.
@LouisIngenthron @BalooUriza
I appreciate your personal laziness being sold as urban policy, Louis.
Funny stuff.
@DoesntExist I don't have context.
@LouisIngenthron @BrentToderian define “makes sense” in an era where transport emissions in the UK have been an almost immovable object for 30 years https://youtu.be/7IZ-U7hjIKk?si=6R_Vqw9h8Q5y2WeM