> Still, these replies show how spoiled, individualistic and entitled people are.
Are you living in a cave? Do you have children? Do you own a car? Do you fly anywhere? Are you sure your house has no glass walls before you throw rocks?
> Still, these replies show how spoiled, individualistic and entitled people are.
There is no flaw or entitlement doing whatever makes you happy. And there's nothing individualistic about not liking public transport (if you have access to it).
The whole glass ceilings concept is absurd: just because someone's situation isn't perfect doesn't mean we don't all benefit from pointing out flaws in a given system.
Who are you to decide what is better for the collectivity? You just decided on different tradeoffs. Should I link the amount of slavery that exists in EV supply chains? Everything has downsides and upsides and things change over time.
We're talking about how those things are impossible to do without a gas car. Half the thread is stumped about how one might go about such things without one.
Well, because the electric cars are not on par with gas ones.
You're also missing the point about how much it pollutes to make one car battery. There was a YT video a while back and you break even pollution wise at about 60-70k miles - basically your fancy electric car is pre-polluted. The only advantage over a gas car is the feel good sentiment.
The other advantage is environmental responsibility.
The pre-pollution you speak of is a myth, because after one year of use the total pollution crosses over in favor of the electric car. Even if the electricity is sourced from the worst source, coal burning, the net result is still a win for electric because electric drive trains use energy so much more efficiently than gas.
Even if it is pre-polluted, you can outsource the pollution to remote areas where the factories and electricity plants are instead of fuming around dense cities where the population lives.
... because winds are static and the greenhouse just affects the area where the pollution is created. And what about the people living there, aren't they entitled to some fresh air? And for the record, the areas are not that remote to local population centers.
The main point about climate change and everything is that you can't play ostrich and if you don't see happening it means you're gonna be ok. If the US pollutes too much (for example's sake) and the ice shelf at the North pole melts, you're gonna feel it all over the world because the water will rise equally.
Negative health effects to large populations of city dwellers PLUS global environment impact or outsourced pollution to remote areas PLUS same global impact?
It does, and it is not only greenhouse gasses but particles like soot, NOx, you don't need to tell me further. Go see how sooty old stone house walls look like in Italy or UK with all the personal diesel cars driving around.
> If the US pollutes too much (for example's sake) and the ice shelf at the North pole melts, you're gonna feel it all over the world because the water will rise equally.
"If the US pollutes too much", droughts and other rare-ish weather events in South America, Africa and South Asia will displace more people and lead to more instability. That's a much more tangible threat in our lifetimes...
No, sorry for the misunderstanding, I was referring to the comment I replied to: sharing more things is simply more efficient on used resources.
I agree with you on the supply chain of EVs... in particular if we're talking about electric cars which are extremely wasteful compared to smaller vehicles and public transit.
In the suburban US, nothing is 15km away. All of the stores you typically go to are 0-5 miles way (grocery store, gas station, pharmacy, doctor, etc.). It is a very convenient place to live and people who want a to live in a house love suburbia because it is affordable, safe, and in general a nice place to live.
People living in rural America have to drive a lot farther than suburbanites.
Also, note that people who prefer to not own a car can choose to live in places with good public transit (mostly big cities like Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Boston, Philidelphia, etc.).
> The 15-minute city (FMC or 15mC[2][3][4][5][6][7]) is an urban planning concept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride from any point in the city.
Roughly 20mph on an electric bike, in 15mn I believe you do roughly 5 miles?
20mph is hauling it on a bicycle. A normal cruising speed on a bike is more like 12-15mph. So that's more like 3.75mi.
But yes, for all the suburbs I've lived in I've had the choice of dozens+ of restaurants, a few grocers, various stores, office parks, and more within 5mi. There's definitely places where this isn't true but it's not like all suburbs take two miles to leave the pure houses neighborhood.
No one claimed that the average suburban "Main St" is going to compare to high-density urban planning, but that suburban shopping options generally offer choices for most daily shopping needs within a reasonable (1-8km) distance independent from the city hub they're next to.
> No one claimed that the average suburban "Main St" is going to compare to high-density urban planning
You did. Dense cities are struggling to implement the 15mn trip to any amenities. Yet you are claiming that everything is in a range of 8km from the average house in an American suburb, that roughly 15mn on an e-bike.
>> a choice of restaurants, bars, cafés, hotels, etc.
You started this with a nonsense statement that suburban American's were somehow 15km away from the nearest shop, which you were corrected on. Then you decided to be pedantic about the reply so you nitpicked the fact the author didn't include restaurants or bars. Then when I corrected that, you decided to move the goal posts to suburbs being 15 minute cities. Now you've decided to triple-down rather than acknowledge maybe your understanding is flawed.
> Yet you are claiming that everything is in a range of 8km
No one said "everything", but "most shopping options". You don't seem actually interested on having an honest conversation rather than pushing a distorted view of American suburbs of which you don't seem to have any 1st hand experience.
In the conventional american city everything is 20 minutes away. Nothing is truly inconvenient, but nowhere has that glorious vibe of effortless living either. In the burbs, every errand is alright, but it's also low key demeaning.
> In the suburban US, nothing is 15km away. All of the stores you typically go to are 0-5 miles way (grocery store, gas station, pharmacy, doctor, etc.).
Then why are people using cars so much if everything is at a walking distance?
Because the roads are dangerous to cross on foot, and the footpaths stop suddenly for no apparent reason. And there's no AC outside, which matters more in some parts of the USA than others (Davis (CA) and Salt Lake City are above my comfort threshold, from memory).
For example, one time I stayed at the The Cupertino Hotel in CA and tried walking to One Infinite Loop, a junction which every sufficiently old iOS user will be familiar with because it's what Apple used to use as the icon for their Maps app before they relocated their HQ to the flying saucer campus. The junction looks like this, and was an awful experience as a pedestrian:
Other than the high annual death toll and millions of life-changing injuries annually, lowered health, significant impact on household income, and pollution, you mean?
And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
Meantime, you could adopt some driving-analog version of the following approach, but don't expect most of us to do so:
"The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards - and even then I have my doubts." --Spaf
> And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
This is only true for one of them and self-driving is still a long ways off. A self-driving EV still produces a lot of pollution (more than half of the CO2 is during manufacturing, and tire dust isn’t improved), costs a lot, and requires significant amounts of space to store and operate.
Nobody is saying there aren’t utility benefits but we shouldn’t continue massively subsidizing something while ignoring all of the problems. That’s why your analogy is nonsensical: spaf and the rest of the community didn’t say “perfect security is impossible, guess we shouldn’t do anything until AGI solves it for us!” and go to the bar.
> And once all (or let's say most) vehicles are self driving and powered by sustainable energy, things will be overwhelmingly better on all those dimensions.
Nope.
In term of general health, on average people will still lower their life expectancy every time they use a self driving vehicle instead of riding your bicycle or walking for the same short trip.
Plus the horror in term of land management and the general effect it has on psych.
Me? Well, the Americans don't let me vote, what with being British and living in Berlin (the original, not any of the 26 places of the same name in the USA), so the best I can do is point out to any Americans who feel like listening that there are better ways to design cities than the ways they've grown up with, and that "15 minute cities" are not the dystopian conspiracy theories that some seem to fear they are.
Beyond all the safety stuff, it's also because that car often saves a huge amount of time compared to walking/biking - especially when there are multiple stops involved in an outing.
And that car can haul groceries, etc. much better than a bike or hands can. I have a grocery store well within walking distance of me (on safe-ish sidewalks even), but I only walk when I only have a few things to pick up because otherwise I'm trying to haul 50lb of fragile and bulky stuff back half a mile to my house by hand (I also tend to go there mostly while I'm already out doing other things, so the marginal additional mileage is nearly zero). Yes, I could take the approach of going to the grocery store every day, but I flat out don't have the time for that (or the weather for that!). Or I could take the approach of buying a much nicer bike with more hauling capacity, but I already have a car (and do enough with it that there's no reasonable way to go without one) so I'm not going to spend $2k on a bike that would only reduce my mileage by 100 miles a year. Heck...just the savings from fixing things DIY covers the cost of my car in a typical year (I have an old house!), not to mention the car rental fees I'd incur for trips pretty much anywhere outside of a 5-10 mile radius.
But to your point, this is also highly situational. If I were in an apartment in NYC, that's a completely different situation than being in a house in a small-size city (honestly, my city in the US even has public transport that nearly rivals comparable cities in Europe...but they key there is comparing to comparable cities in Europe...where everyone still has cars because to go anywhere outside of a small radius, they need a car).
Because the infrastructure is designed such that it's not safe to do otherwise, and anything but driving is an afterthought. I have a shopping center just over a mile away from me but I'd be putting my life at risk walking or biking there.
I would love to be able to bike there safely. Wouldn't even take much longer than driving.
> It (suburbia) is a very convenient place to live
I just wanted to point out that this is missed on a lot of people. City planners in suburbs have come a long way, at least in DFW they have. I live in Oak Cliff which is about 3 miles S/SW of downtown Dallas. The northern suburbs of DFW such as Frisco are not the traditional boring/bland bedroom communities that get associated with suburbs. Well, there is that element but there are many good jobs, good restaurants/entertainment, and other amenities traditionally associated with city centers in the suburbs these days.
I suggest spending some times in a growing a suburb with an open mind. If you're a city person it's not likely to amaze you but it's not that bad either.
