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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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I love good public transport. It's great to not have to worry about parking or having to drive. Good cities, like many in Europe and New York in the US, a car isn't really required.
But out in the countryside, a car is a must. Electric cars are massively better for the environment and way cheaper to run (like tenth the cost with a night rate).
Also, no offense here but saying NYC or European cities are good is a perspective I would not agree with. I do not want to live in a high rise apartment and there are a lot of people who do not want that.
European and NYC people are used to it, but that doesn't make it good.
Having that many people in one place is actually not good. Some of them never experience being in nature. Living conditions aren't great. It's cramped and expensive.
All of this so they can say that using public transportation is good? That's ridiculous.
Edit: Downvote me all you want. This is the truth. Cities are not good.
Depends on the city. Sure, some are high rise, which isn't for some, but they aren't all like that. London for example is relatively flat but has an excellent public transport system. Same with Paris and Brussels. Essen seamer good while I was there. Utrecht was great. Amsterdam too (but it's just grim due to all the drug tourists). Most European cities are walkable and have at least a basic level of usable public transport.
NY was the only American city I've been to which had a decent transport system I used. Seattle I saw trams but was on business with Texan sales people, trams with out the question. Austin buses felt very much like what only poor people used and walking the 2 miles from the apartment to the office, involved some fence holes and minor trespassing to be even possible. Mostly nice river walk though.
All cities should have decent public transport and be walkable. Car based urban sprawl has got to go. Older, pre-car, cities are often the nicest.
Edit : Wuppertal, that was my German favourite. It's like an alternative timeline city. Love its "floating tram.
I think the problem is that most European and East coast US cities were built for walking / horses. The western US is entirely built around having a car and much of it is empty. There are massive swaths of land that is too hot for biking and it would be incrediblely expensive to change any of this.
I was in Austin for 6 weeks and it was just about walkable. Most of the walk to the office was alongside the river and tree covered. I was the only one walking. Everyone else was jogging or riding a bike.
Put trees along the paths. They will add shade and cooling. Plus, we need all the tree we can get!
hardly any european cities primarily use high rises for housing
The majority that I have been in have multistory apartments. Worse is they are incredibly small. I would never want to live my life in them.
"Multistory" isn't the same thing as "high-rise." A five-floor Boston walk-up like I lived in for a month back in 2013 is a "mid-rise" at most, and plenty of density can be achieved with two- or three-story townhouses or even relatively small stand-alone houses on relatively small lots.
And okay, cool. No one's gonna make you, no matter how much you fantasize about someone trying. Literally all we argue for here in terms of housing is not having SFH be the only real option like it is in most of the US, so I'd politely request that you stop telling us wrongly what our position is.