Or... maybe it's not about you! Maybe it's about the fact that people in the US and Canada who do want a suburban lifestyle already have a continent full of car-centric developments to choose from, whereas people who would prefer a "car-less urban paradise", if they could find one, generally can't get it; they have to settle for something they are less happy with, because 20th century urban planning re-engineered almost all cities around the automobile.
> Or... maybe it's not about you! Maybe it's about the fact that people in the US and Canada who do want a suburban lifestyle already have a continent full of car-centric developments to choose from, whereas people who would prefer a "car-less urban paradise", if they could find one
Sorry, not really. If they limited themselves to advocating for areas designed so car ownership wasn't so necessary in accordance with local preferences, and were willing to let others live-and-let-live, that would be fine. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. Those ideas are frequently coupled with dripping disdain for suburbs and anyone who prefers that lifestyle, and/or an attitude that views personal car ownership as some kind of moral affront that in time must snuffed out, etc.
It's not a bad thing that people take trains rather than drive or that economic incentives favor living in cities.
Those are, in fact, things a country can want - for a multitude of reasons. Environmental impact, cultural centers, oil politics, etc. The fact that car-centric suburban culture is difficult to attain may be feature, not a bug.
Maybe you are right, but I would challenge the assumption that the overwhelming majority of people want cars and want to live in the suburbs. Many lament having to live there, but have little choice due to factors such as cost, schools, crime, etc. It is interesting to see how many American's choose for vacation, a high density hotel, condos, cruises, etc. Maybe Americans prefer living in villages and higher density communities more than people realize.
Generalizing a bit, it seems that suburbanites hate other people’s cars, but are OK needing to drive everywhere, whereas urbanites hate having a car-dependent lifestyle.
Do people actually enjoy car-centric living, or are alternatives just not available or something the average American has much exposure to? If you want to live somewhere in America that's walkable/bikeable/good public transit, your choices are a lot more limited than if you're willing to live somewhere where you need to drive everywhere. And those limited choices tend to be more expensive, which I think says something about their popularity.
Interestingly though, it seems like there is a trend to expand car alternative options, at least in some areas of the country. There's not much you can do about an exurban bedroom community because density is so low and nothing besides other houses is remotely within a convenient non-car distance. But in places that could be less car-centric, you're starting to see expanded public transit and bicycle infrastructure. And even in what would normally be a suburban area, I've started to see more mixed use development with higher density housing options. And of course more high-end condo type housing in large cities themselves. The fact these all tend to be relatively expensive places to rent or buy a home suggests to me that demand is fairly high, so clearly not everyone loves the car-centric choice.
I also think there is a segment of Americans who love the idea of low-density, car-centric, single family development in theory, but they're running into the reality that trying to build that for everyone means that people are going to have to live increasingly far away from anywhere they want to go. Even if you don't mind driving everywhere, car-centric becomes a lot less fun when everything is a 30+ minute drive away and gas is becoming more expensive.
The real problem, as the author tangentially points out, is our over-reliance on cars to move us around. That’s due to the intentional choices that we have all made. If you look at the structure of suburban areas of cities in the US, you’ll immediately see that they are entirely designed the assumption of the existence of a personal car for YOU. You simply cannot get around without one.
A choice that I’m grappling with personally (as someone who lives in the suburbs in the US and owns two Teslas) is that I should really move somewhere more sustainable, i.e., more density so that I can get rid of my cars. That’s more difficult given family needs etc. If I didn’t have to factor others’ needs, I would have done this already.
This is the point that I think the author is trying to make. Changes at the margin aren’t addressing the real problem - they’re treating the symptom, not the disease.
Urbanists don’t hate the suburbs because they look same-ish and have chain restaurants.
Urbanists hate them because they are designed for cars instead of people, and are actively hostile to simply existing in the outside natural world.
Urbanists hate the suburbs that disconnect the pedestrian environment even in cases where on a Birds Eye view you can see that some of the shopping and schools are so close to the residents. There are endless cases of easy 1/4 mile walks turned into a twisted loop of 1.5 mile long excursions just to follow the car infrastructure to the nearest safe crossings and access roads.
The automobile is America’s largest wealth destroyer that takes car payments averaging something like $500-700 a month and concentrating them depreciating assets that fund a handful of corporations in the automotive industry. Meanwhile, these cars are fueled by oil we have scientifically proven to already use too much of.
There are numerous videos from urbanism channels like Not Just Bikes proving that car-light or car-free suburban living or even rural living is possible and exists successfully in places outside of North America.
Cars have only existed for a tiny fraction of human history. Far-flung villages and cities have existed for millennia. The bicycle can move a human faster, more reliably, and cheaper than a horse ever could. Trains are far more energy efficient, pleasant, accessible to people with disabilities, and safe than automobiles, and North America had them loads of them before they ever had automobiles.
Once you get past the acceptance of the premise, you'll find people objecting to adopting that lifestyle. For many Americans, the nearest city is not a desirable place to live so they don't know what they're missing. For the remainder that want to at least enable a car-free life, the best path forward is a matter of debate.
Sadly what I think goes unrecognized is that the suburbs have forced their car-dependent lifestyle on cities for so long that trying to reverse all the bad history urban highways and transit defunding is exceptionally tough.
Its more like cars are unsustainable. Sure, some don't like dense urban living, but they'll have to pay for that eventually. We are lucky in the states that we have so much land and resources that we really have a lot of choices; this isn't as true for the rest of the world.
Retrofitting American suburban sprawl to be less car-centric is going to be one of the enduring puzzles of the 21st century.
The suburban model of planning championed in the 50's onwards became so deeply embedded in development projects and just the entire culture of small city planning across the country that a huge chunk of Americans are completely unaware that a less car-centric lifestyle is even possible, let alone desirable.
We're only starting to scratch the surface of understanding how much friggin work it's going to take teasing out the messes that were made by lazy cookie cutter civic planning. And it certainly doesn't help that local governments, planners and many many ordinary car-dependent citizens continue to fight tooth-and-nail to uphold the status quo in this regard.
It's great that Google is at least attempting to transform Silicon Valley, at least a little bit. I just wish that the hundreds of other communities around the country that don't have a progressive mega company in their neighborhood can get a little nudge from this type of work someday...
Cars aren't the terrible thing that many pro urban folk here seem to make them out to be, and I suspect most people prefer driving them to cycling or using public transport.
Similarly, the whole idea of automated driving becoming the default and humans not being able to drive is something I'm 100% against, since it'd be both a privacy nightmare and take away a lot of people's freedom.
The problem is really more that some places are designed to only be usable in a car, and that's what's poorly designed.
Speaking of which, also that suburbs aren't a bad thing. Again, it feels like people take the car focused design common in the US, and assume that's how these have to be. Thousands of identical houses in the middle of nowhere with everything interesting a 30 minute drive away.
But that's not necessarily true, and (as seen in most of the world), suburbs can be quite nice places to live in. A walkable one (like many in Europe) can be just as valid a place to live as a dense city neighborhood or rural area.
> This lifestyle can't work for people outside of cities, though.
Exactly. Which means that, if cities are designed sanely, they will be more attractive to people who don't want cars (when I lived in a city during college, I never had a car and never missed having one), and suburbs and rural areas will be more attractive to people who do (as I do now since I like having a detached house and an actual yard).
I don’t think that’s a common opinion. I haven’t even met anyone that hate cars, but there are many that think car-centrism results in boring, isolated cities. That’s quite reasonable, since car centrism is, so far, a historical anomaly in terms of urbanism. Humans have been building cities for millennia. The US suburbia model is just objectively novel, an outlier in human civilization. Doesn’t mean it’s bad of itself, but it’s certainly not normative.
It's definitely a choice and I wasn't implying it's a bad one. Everyone has different priorities, like you said it could be kids or something else. All I'm saying is that it's those choices that make urban sprawl a thing and reduces the effectiveness of living car-free. I'd buy a car in an instant if I had to, and I consider myself lucky not to have to right now.
Not all suburban cities are equal either, some makes it possible not to have to commute by car (at least near where I live).
This approach seems to be based on “there is only one right way to live and that’s without a car”.
You may not like a lifestyle that is car dependent, but plenty of people do. I’ve lived in cities with high density and excellent transit and what do people buy when they can afford it? A car.
Your claim that these areas are desirable because they aren’t car dependent is clearly not supported by fact. Plenty of areas are highly desirable and people still want their cars.
This article is written like someone complaining about someone else’s taste in wine. It’s all arguments about subjective tastes.
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