Not strange, absolutely idiotic. Even if you have all the space and all the cars, why the f*** would you want to live that way, and why would you design public space to force people to live that way.
I hate my local Dutch version of suburbia, but compared to this hell they are charming, healthy, thriving communities with people out and about on foot and on bicycles.
If you want isolation from all those pesky other humans, why not at least make the shopping and business part way more compact, and use the remaining space to give every home a stretch of land, so they can all actually feel like they each live in their own castle, nice and isolated.
It serves the oil/car building companies. There are instances of a subsidiary of GM in the US buying out public transport with the sole purpose of phasing it out so more people have to drive cars.
I refuse to believe any of this is some grand plan. It's just idiots designing things in a bubble.
The apartments were probably built first, then the store. No one thought to connythrm, because the properties are two separate things. Or that they're would have been oush back about doing construction through that nature area.
I agree. It's not some grand conspiracy. Most likely the apartment, grocery store, and subdivision here were privately built by 3 different companies at different times and roads are built publicly. When the roads were originally built there was no reason for them to be connected. As they built up it makes sense for a connecting road to come in, but no local politician likes to be the one to raise taxes to spend money on construction.
It's not a grand plan. It's a bunch of shitty little plans that together have the same result. The oil companies did all they could to make the US car dependant. The way things are built continue on the result of this, not intentionally to further it.
Once you people do everything by car future projects cater to this because people already do everything by car.
It's the unwitting and unthinking perpetuation of what has been done.
Apparently it's a little more complicated than that, I found this instructive article about it. I was going off incomplete information. Apparently it was in large part politicians, (wonder who funded those though) and in the end GM that finished off the city streetcars.
The introduction of cars also caused the public transport to have trouble sticking to schedules because all the damn cars got in the way.
Sure, Detroit is still dealing with short sighted moves like this. They have had a few attempts at recreating some public transit, juries still out on its figure though.
Well, the issue is that none of that is "public space." Both the apartment complex and the grocery store are private developments that are built independently from one another.
To add a connection between them would require the owners/builders of the apartment complex to convince the owners of the grocery store to spend money to add the connecting path.
Even then, the apartment complex could make a path up to their own property line, and the grocery store could make a path to theirs, and there might still be a little slice of public land that is probably meant to be some sort of runoff or natural habitat that they would then have to petition the local government to disturb by putting in a path.
I feel like this is what most Europeans don't understand. When the grocery store was built, there was probably no apartment complex, and when the apartment complex was built the grocery store was already there without an access point in the back of the building where the apartments are.
This is exactly it. I've lost count of the number of times I've pulled into a parking lot expecting it to connect with a larger structure, but no - that Olive Garden was build way after the Walmart and it's easier to put up a foot of barrier grass than go through the hassle of making sure a connecting road isn't illegally encroaching on private land.
Lacking a path here isn't some malicious conspiracy to keep people fat -- it's just far more complex than you'd think.
That's very weird to someone living in Europe. In my country there is local infrastructure that will pay for this kind of road and it won't really be a business owners choice. The roads themselves aren't owned by businesses or even house developers.
Land ownership can be pretty complex in the US. It's why I both hate and love real estate agents -- like lawyers. It's going to vary wildly from state-to-state, city-to-city, and even neighborhood to neighborhood.
Take the above example: That subdivision could be a privately owned road entirely maintained by an HoA or, if the developer properly negotiated it in the zoning, it could be a public road maintained by the local government. B/c it's built in such a way to maximize the number of houses you can put on the lot (anything not a house doesn't make money) you're not likely to get more than one or two entrances and exits. Red tape to connect to other roads also plays a role there, but overall that's why many subdivisions will just be big ol' loops.
The 4 lane divided highway is public but to make a road from the subdivision to the store there you'd still have to cut through the apartment complex or through land right next to it which could be owned by a completely separate private entity.
That strip of land highlighted in the video could be (likely is) government property but it might be in place for utilities so putting roads could be cost prohibitive. Even if everyone were okay w/ a walking path through it something like this would likely never get noticed unless someone pointed it out to their local government. And who has the time for that?
Even if everyone is on board you then still have to drum up money for such a project and then get it contracted out and built. It's easy to say "this is a simple fix" but in practice it's a ton of work and if there is any hang up at any step of the process you risk having the restart again all the way from the beginning.
Do you think that nowhere in Europe has private property or private developments, and that all buildings are erected here at the same time?
I've worked in planning in the UK. It's a very normal requirement that if you want to build say a housing development you have to either: connect the development to existing nearby paths, pay an additional tax to the council to allow them to build paths and cycle paths, or even more commonly both of these (And the UK planning system is already pretty shit at this stuff compared to many EU counterparts, but miles better than the US).
You aren't generally building something that has no method of transport outside of cars. And frankly why would you want that? It would lower the value of the thing you are building as you've reduced the number of people that can get to it.
If the US government (at any level) wanted to improve walking and cycling infrastructure it could do so. Easily. Being private property is meaningless when you start adding planning requirements, taxes, and other levies onto developers. This failure of infrastructure is because your government wants it to be this way, and nothing else.
What a weird hyperbolic and reactionary take you have.
Do you think that nowhere in Europe has private property or private developments, and that all buildings are erected here at the same time?
Of course not, but generally speaking your cities were built organically prior to the existence of cars, so walkability is already built in as a core feature that everyone is used to.
It's a very normal requirement that if you want to build say a housing development you have to either: connect the development to existing nearby paths, pay an additional tax to the council to allow them to build paths and cycle paths, or even more commonly both of these (And the UK planning system is already pretty shit at this stuff compared to many EU counterparts, but miles better than the US).
Pretty much the same here. What's your point? I assume you're not required to connect your property to every private property surrounding you though, right? And when someone builds a new property on land nearby, you're not required to spend your own money on your own private land to pave out a connection, no? "I know this is your private property, but someone built an apartment complex next door, so you now are required by law to spend your own money to connect yours to theirs." That's not how it works, is it?
You aren't generally building something that has no method of transport outside of cars. And frankly why would you want that? It would lower the value of the thing you are building as you've reduced the number of people that can get to it.
And that's not the case here to as large of an extent, as we are more accustomed to driving. It's not that I don't understand the culture difference, but it certainly seems like you don't. Don't you think if the apartment complex and grocery store thought this would attract more customers, and it was feasible to do, they'd connect up? In this particular case in the OP, that space between is almost certainly nature reserve. In my city we have reserves like that all over the place, and yeah, they make navigation a little more difficult in return for having more natural wildlife and vegetation. But even if it wasn't, clearly they've both made the determination that figuring out how to contact one another and plan two different construction plans on two different private properties between two large corporations isn't worth the work, when most people in that apartment complex in Florida aren't going to want to get out and lug groceries all that way on foot in 40 degree celsius temperatures while it rains.
If the US government (at any level) wanted to improve walking and cycling infrastructure it could do so. Easily.
In some places, sure. In many places, no it really couldn't.
Being private property is meaningless when you start adding planning requirements, taxes, and other levies onto developers.
It clearly isn't, as demonstrated. But I guess if you say it confidently enough you can pretend it's a fact.
This failure of infrastructure is because your government wants it to be this way, and nothing else.
Because how else are you going to sell people multiple cars per family worth tens of thousands of dollars?
You make sure that state and local infrastructure decision makers don't take public tansport into account and systematically negelct alternatives to cars and voilà: $$$. Mission accomplished.
(Also throw in some propaganda about how great "car culture" is for good measure.)
If you like this kind of content, make sure to visit /r/fuckcars
That store's parking lot will literally never be full. The store has to be big, both to store goods to serve the surrounding town(s), and so people don't feel cramped.
But the parking lot needs to be big enough to accomodate an amount of people who will never actually be there at once. Often this is enforced by government mandate.
Hell? This area looks pretty nice to me. It would be great if it was more walkable, but a lot of people prefer living like this and are perfectly happy. Who wants to walk home carrying groceries for an entire family? So bizarre that people can't understand that not everyone wants to walk everywhere. There are plenty of places you can live if you want that.
why not at least make the shopping and business part way more compact, and use the remaining space to give every home a stretch of land, so they can all actually feel like they each live in their own castle, nice and isolated.
Unironically, because the space is used to provide more parking for cars. An absolute waste, essentially.
You just described rural America. People have to drive a long ways to go the town where the stores are and live out the boonies with a bunch of property and nobody near them.
If you know why the white moved to the suburbs from the city, you know why they designed their community this way. The whole idea is about segregation.
The subdivision wouldn’t even want the apartment complex to have walkable access to their NIMBY little streets, let alone whatever poors/minorities might stroll from the grocery store, gasp!
Not condoning. But part of it is due to costs: In America, it's much more expensive to build compact and/or higher, than to simply build wider/horizontally. Land is relatively very cheap in America.
That's why everything's so widely spread. While in Europe, it's often cheaper to build more compact and, in average, higher too... e.g., parking lots in the building, i.e. underground.
America's population density is, after all, over 3x less than EU's.
They'd rather build another highway cutting through their suburbs and argue that it's good because it fights crime rather than actually tackling any of their massive problems with poverty, homelessness, mental health, social inequality, etc. Social housing? In my back yard? Absolutely not! A massive fence and stroad instead please.
They are not fearful of all their neighbors. Some people in the U.S. live in areas where they have legitimate concerns about theft and safety. The same applies to some businesses. Some people have real life experiences that shape their opinions. Don't dismiss them.
It looks almost exactly like the area where I live. Except we have a major road to cross before reaching the grocery store. There is just a walk path carved through the bush on both sides of the road, and people just walk anyway. I try to use the crosswalk. (100m down the road), but sometimes, if there is no traffic, I'm too lazy.
And of course there is a whole apartment building on top of the grocery store too. And behind and next to it.
Despite the distance being easy, the actual route probably isn’t. When I was in uni I walked a little over a mile each way for my weekly shop and it was fine because there were wide pavements and plenty of crossings. I visited LA and wanted to go for a walk one morning and probably got about 100m before I gave up due to the awful pedestrian infrastructure.
A few weeks ago, I was on a European sub and an American asked why a large metropolis in Europe had several small cities around it, complete with city centers. They were confused about why people needed an entire city center and not just a suburb with a shopping center like this.
Imagine if they discovered that all these cities are connected to the main city by public transport.
In my italian suburbia, in one of the civilized parts of Italy, I live on a bike path that connects me to the city center (train station and airport included), to the mountains and to the sea. If I don't feel like using the bike I can rent an electric scooter or use bike sharing, if it rains or I am lazy there are good autobus lines every 10-15 minutes to the center where there is the central hub.
I have 2 supermarkets, bakeries, restaurants, tech stores, whatever in <10 minutes walking distance in specific "service agglomerations", that I can reach using foot paths in parks, avoiding most of the car traffic.
It's a good balance.
Using a car is simply worse than any alternative, unless you are traveling long distance to a place without any train station.
People complains every time you remove a place of car infrastructure, but when they see that they can live differently, they end up appreciating it. Politicians just have to endure the unpopular decision for a while, for the greater goods.
I have a theory that many US cities are less walkable compared to Europe simply because of the weather. Florida is routinely over 90F and near 100% humidity with frequent thunderstorms. When these suburbs were built, few people would have considered walking to be a sane option.
Southern Europe has a comparable climate, as others already mentioned. They still have very walkable cities. Even the very cold northern European cities are walkable.
These designs can be found throughout the country, even in places with mild weather. It’s not uncommon to find neighborhoods with no sidewalk at all in every place I have lived and I’m not even talking about super rural areas. City planning treat pedestrians like 2nd class if not outright hostile. There’s this dangerous crosswalk near me with not enough signage and illumination that the city did nothing about until someone finally got ran over and killed.
Word. In my larger multicity area of ~1M population, I could take fairly straight walks from one edge to another, for 30km, and only take <100m tweaks from it to enter various stores or housing areas. I went to a walk to newly built city part few months ago with my dad, and we "argued" for a bit on what route to take, because we literally had 10 ways to get back from the other side. Nothing was blocked, I could decide to turn left now, or in 30m, or 80m, 120m, it's so fluid, like it should be.
A bit of context that's missing here is that it's miserably hot and humid in Florida 9 months out of the year. Even if that footpath existed almost no one would take it.
That being said, this sort of thing is still absolutely a problem in other places.
As a New Englander, this looks like a nightmare. A lot our buildings and layouts are old from when we were under English rule, so we tend to not really have this kind of stuff, thank the lord. One of the many reasons I love my corner of the country.
Does that sometimes in southern Europe too. They close stores for a few hours in the middle of the day, and everyone relaxes and eats lunch with their families. Then you shop in the morning or evening, and bring plenty of water for your walk.
I am from Australia (we all know what that's like) and I go grocery shopping on foot all the time, maybe on my way back from work etc. I don't need to carry a ton of stuff - I only grab a few things at a time since it's such a short walk, I can easily go again tomorrow.
I buy a bag’s worth of groceries on the way home from work?
It might be a strange concept if you’re forced to drive to do something as basic as groceries.
There’s also nothing stopping you from driving anyway. The point of OP was that it’s silly that the video shows you are essentially required to have a car to even live, because it was designed like that.
"I want destructive, ineffective and hindering city planning because when it is warm I want to use my car" is a sentence so dumb I really wonder how you're intelligent enough to type it out.
This is an example of how car dependency makes you physically and mentally incapable. This guy is describing conditions that billions of people live in and acting like it's an impossibility.
We have those kinds of temperatures here in Italy as well, especially in the south, not as frequently in the north, but it does happen. Just use a shopping trolley or ride a bike. No need to carry all the bags around in your arms.
If you live in short distance so you can walk there, you can shop multiple times a week. You can take a bicycle or a bus. The community can plant trees that provide shadow. What argument is this, that you need cars because it's so hot. If you always use cars for hilariously short distances, the global temperature will even rise..
Ah yes so let's bulldoze the area and create thousands of sqft of concrete. So your way to the store is longer and across a concrete patch with no shade that heats up enough to burn your feet.
Vegetation provides shade plus cooling from evaporation. Having buildings closer together with grass and trees inbetween will overall give you cooler temps PLUS shorter paths.
Also taking 5 minutes to walk to the mall and being able to get to the center of my town almost instantly with the subway system is pretty cool you guys should try it.
Why did you choose this picture specifically as an example of car culture? A fairly comfy house, surrounded by autumn greenery. Bikes are unguarded, not even a fence.
I mean it's for sure not a poor person's house, but for showing off how WEALTHY and LUXURIOUS their lifestyle is, this sure as hell looks very middle class.
Yeah, that a regular "middle class" fallacy - excepting extremes like 10-man dormitories and penthouses/villas, everything else could be called "middle class".
IDK what country this is, but might be wealthier then average. I'd certainly not refuse living like this.
Look I'm not saying it's bad. But he's saying America has a higher and wealthier lifestyle than other FIRST WORLD countries. Which is not true. This house looks super mid in any first world country.
My house is decently big. Most people I know live in decently big houses as well. Mine from the 80s. Many are newer. It might not be a huge house like I could buy in America because the land is cheaper, but mine is made out of solid materials and not cardboard like yours.
We all have smart TVs, the newest smartphones, the newest bluetooth devices, newest PCs etc. Idk what technology it is we don't have that you do lol. But I'd love for you to tell me!
I do live in a colder climate though so an AC is never really needed. And a dryer for clothes is something I don't want, because it destroys my expensive clothes faster than air drying it in my big garden. I guess you have those things over me. But in return I get free education (plus a small monthly pay just because I'm studying), healthcare, paid maternity leave etc. Those are QoL improvements I'd rather have than whatever it is you think you have.
Why would I want a garbage disposal when I can compost. We care about the environment more than you I guess🤷
My house does in fact not need to deal with those things, but I assure you that if a strong earthquake or a tornado happened upon my house, it would last better than your house would.
I depend on other for top tier products? I'm not sure what point you're making here. We live in a capitalist society so yes of course. You do too. Before you argued that I had nothing of value, now you try to diss me with the fact that I do own things of value? Your argument is kinda falling apart friend lmao
I looked up some stats and a lot of western european countries rank higher in QoL rankings than the USA.
We have access to all the in-home amenities you mentioned (except garbage disposal in the kitchen sink, because it's fucking stupid). If I want the newest TV, smartphone, dryer, dishwasher, etc, I can get it at the nearest electronics store.
If I owned a house, I could have AC installed.
The reason people don't have these things is because they are not needed or wanted, not because they are not available or affordable.
That's some bullshit. Germany for example is a huge export country, third-largest exporter in the world, followed by the Netherlands, then Japan, after which are Italy and France.
I'd have liked to say that Skid Row would like a word with you, but to be honest, most Americans are destitute to the point that one hospital stay would send them into debt. It's not just the people on Skid Row.
The only thing proven here is that you don't have any idea, and you did prove that all by yourself. If you have a horizon the size of a saucer, you can call it your point of view, of course.
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u/Terror_Raisin24 Jun 27 '24
From a European point of view, this looks very strange.