How do you feel about the urbanism movement? Would you like to see it get adopted across our country?

Posted by NurglingArmada@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 25 comments

I think a lot of urbanists can come off annoying and preachy but they do have valid points in the failures of American city planning focusing entirely on cars and not people. As this oil crisis gets worse and worse, it’s evident we need to see a shift away from car dependency, plus it is morally, economically, and environmentally wrong to focus car planning so much.

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TillikumWasFramed@reddit

I'm in favor of walkable cities. But it's an uphill battle. It's hard to see what would incentivize anyone to develop a very dense city today. Dense, walkable downtowns, yes.

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AnotherPint@reddit

Most of what the absolutist urbanists want is not politically, logistically, or fiscally practicable.

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ITrCool@reddit

Was just coming to say this. Also there is the freedom factor. Instead of waiting on a train or bus schedule to get to work or elsewhere and if it's late, now you're late. If the system gets halted for whatever reason, it brings a LOT of people's lives to a halt.

Cars don't do that. They enable people to come and go at their schedule instead of someone else's.

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

You live in Chicago. You see it’s possible every day

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NurglingArmada@reddit (OP)

I think fiscally and logistically it is. Rail lines and public transit are actually cheaper than road ways when you account for the maintenance for them compared to the car centric suburbia. And logistically, we already had good railways in the US pre-ww2, but the demand to make our cities more accommodating to people in cars kinda took that away

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WorstCPANA@reddit

This is a reddit narrative that has some basis in reality but isn't as nefarious as redditors make it seem, you all seem to think it's some huge conspiracy, when it's simpler than that: America is huge and cars have been a preferred method of transportation because we need vast networks of interstate and international roadways to move goods and people. It's no surprise that the best public transit systems in the world are in the most population dense areas of the world.

In America, 100 years is a long time, in europe, 100 miles is a long drive.

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NurglingArmada@reddit (OP)

How is any of that a conspiracy? I just said public sentiment started going towards making everything car accessible after an economic boom where people were able to get cars. Because of that, we shifted away from the railways, something I view as a mistake.

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datsyukianleeks@reddit

It is logistically and fiscally possible. It's just political will.

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Danibear285@reddit

It’s not that deep in the real world

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the-quibbler@reddit

I reject the premise that focusing on cars is either immoral or uneconomic. But, in the event this were true, that would be a massive money-making opportunity. You should pitch your business plan to Y Combinator.

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shammy_dammy@reddit

Depends entirely on what they want.

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JayRandom212@reddit

We need urbanism in the USA and should encourage it -- but we gotta respect the fact that huge numbers of Americans hate it. We need to keep options open for those who like lawns, big dogs, and loud parties. They may have to pay a little more for these things, but using zoning to turn Levitowns into apartment blocks should be done *RARELY*.

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crazycatlady331@reddit

In general I like it. Two years ago, I moved to an apartment building that sits right behind a grocery store. Being able to walk to the grocery store was not on my radar when I moved, but I LOVE it. IT's nice not to have to worry about having enough milk for my morning coffee knowing I could just grab some before I brew it. A lot easier to walk (400 steps) than drive.

That said, it has a long way to go as people generally won't do everything (especially work) in their immediate neighborhood. It's great to be able to live, go out to eat, etc. in the same general vicinity, but your job is likely not there.

About a decade ago, they tried this where I used to live. Built mixed-use buildings with apartments on top and businesses on the bottom. The businesses that (initially) occupied it were a nail salon, restaurant, and gift shop. As of the last time I was there, every business was vacant.

The key for making it work is to go to businesses that people frequent. Like a grocery store over a nail salon.

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Efficient_Advice_380@reddit

A lot of major cities won't feel it. Take Chicago for example, it currently has an estimated population on ~2.7 million people. In 1950 it had a peak population of 3.6 million, which means theres still room for an additional 1 million people

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

The future of our country’s financial solvency depends on it. But….most of my fellow countrymen are just fine with driving everywhere, and the resulting endless highways and parking lots. Most Americans don’t really care about anything beyond their own convenience

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Henry_Fleischer@reddit

I definitely would like to see more urbanism near where I live. With just a few more busses, living here would be much less depressing.

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notthegoatseguy@reddit

We could triple our density in most cities and barely feel anything because so many of them have been hollowed out by highways and parking lots.

We should make it easy to circumvent cities via limited access bypasses but once you pull off onto surface streets, the priority should be for people on foot, people on wheels first, public transit and business vehicles (delivery trucks, mail, etc...) second, and private vehicles a distant third.

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datsyukianleeks@reddit

The other thing is that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You build transit centric dense housing and suburbs around it and people choose. This is how Singapore did it and it's awesome.

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manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit

I live in an urban area, but I also understand why some people prefer living in suburbs or rural areas. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with places that aren't dense cities.

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Adorable-East-2276@reddit

I would like the US to have better designed cities. But most people I know who identify as urbanists are preachy, and unwilling to engage with reality.

Additionally, most people who use that term see European cities as the ideal, but IMO Chinese cities are both a more feasible and desirable model

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beads-and-things@reddit

Personally I think the last thing we need right now is to encourage widespread gentrification because the rent is already too damn high. Which is how "urbanism" would probably shake out in my personal opinion. I'd rather encourage remote work with which would hypothetically free up land from office space, decrease pressure on childcare services, and slow down population drain from more rural areas which might prevent shuttering of social services in them. All of which is unlikely to happen.

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Meowmeowmeow31@reddit

I support it. The extreme car dependency in much of the US is one of the only things I genuinely dislike about the country.

As more Baby Boomers reach the age where they shouldn’t be driving anymore, the drawbacks of car dependency are going to become even harder to ignore. Being able to live an independent, fulfilling life shouldn’t depend on your ability to drive.

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