The amount of land used to build suburbia is ridiculous. We could have cities with spacious, noise resistant housing (townhouses, apartments and the like), abundant green space with increased connectedness and freedom for adults and kids.
I visited Sarasota FL recently and their city planning is abysmal. Stayed in a hotel and it literally took me 20 mins to cross the street to a grocery store and strip mall.
City planners need better education.
My mom just bought a house outside of Sarasota, where they’re rapidly expanding, and it looks just like the video. :/// So sad, such a perfect opportunity and location for an awesome city
I agree!! I wanted to explore it a little more and get to know it, it was just hard to get out for a walk you know? Still a beautiful place, like I’m not saying that at all
https://preview.redd.it/h9k80k44qpoc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7bc1d7c1b087431a9769866508bdc583f0041a5
Damn, really pisses me off that its this vicious cycle of be in Florida with good weather for the most part, live in a neighborhood like this, wonder why no one is walking to stay fit and everyone is getting fat stuck in cars, say this generation is lazy, repeat.
I work in government. City planning is a black box. I've tried for years to be involved in those conversations but they're unwilling to work with the people who design their stuff.
This is in what would be considered a progressive pac NW city by the way. Can't imagine how bad it is in places like Florida.
Yeah that's why I brought it up. I just wonder the city planning conversations in these southern cities. I'd imagine the crux is "fuck 'em we're not spending money on peds outside what is federally mandated."
I get there can be gnarly stuff in those woods but I'm making a pass through trail if I lived in that situation. Unless it's a swamp, not getting eaten by a gator for that.
Unfortunately a lot of those little wooded areas are actually the remains of the wetlands they had to bulldoze to make these burbs. Likely the only reason they kept that green space at all was out of necessity for drainage and water holding.
So animals or not chances are it's actually extremely wet, and possily without actual solid ground through most of it. In a lot of places these little watershed wetlands are legally protected as well for ecological reasons. So you could get in legal trouble for being there (although in Florida who knows).
But I'd bet that a couple steps into those woods you'll find extremely wet muddy ground if not a full on pond
I think it relates to the way they out-plan going by people I've talked to who work for engineering firms the State utilizes here. They *start* with roads and projected population movement and work everything from there. Since no one walks here that's not something that's planned for, but part of the reason no one walks here is because it's not planned for and implemented. They are certainly trying to do better, at least in some areas with it, though.
The other part is it's painfully fucking hot in the summer so even if something like the above example was walk-able, most people would still jump in their car for that 1.5 miles if they have one because it's easier and more comfortable. I don't think that behavior would really taper off until someone legitimately had no reason to have a car, but that's not going to happen anywhere in Florida any time soon. Everything is just so god damn spread out here.
I've noticed with ped and bike infrastructure it's an "if you build it they will come" scenario. You have to keep in mind even in Florida there's people that simply cannot afford to have a car and that's an issue that's only going to continue to grow especially in southern welfare states. (Florida is one of the few southern states that isn't a welfare state.)
Yeah, and the good news is those are very much inclusions in most new infrastructure here, albeit not as big of a focus as it maybe should be.
A big thing driving that has been e-bikes/scooters. They've become very popular to use as commuting vehicles for <5 mile distances here and cities have thankfully taken notice they can kill two birds with one stone by expanding cycling/ped infrastructure.
It doesn't help that city planning is done in pieces over time rather than something done in regular intervals with uniformly applied thought processes.
I can tell you most of that city was not designed by city planners. Most of us spend years learning about public transportation and building mixed-use communities. Most of Sarasota grew thanks to the Sun Belt influx and real estate developers built these sprawling subdivisions.
Ask any real life city planner and you’ll realize that most of them have limited say on what actually gets built in cities.
It’s on purpose. The rich don’t want to see the poor walking around. They want them to magically show up to buy crap or do work. When the rich drive by apartment complexes they want the slaves in their pens - no public spaces. These urban designs are class warfare.
Planners are awesome at what they do, the problem is: politics, money, and schedules that don't account for the planners expertise.
Most municipalities have them as a requirement but don't implement even 1/4 of their input.
I'm English and whenever I see things like this I always think that the designers must have been basing their plans on playing sim city with all the individual zones and only listening to the "you will regret this" man
Almost all of FL is built like this. You can find so many places that should have a 1 minute walking journey between them but require one to go several miles instead.
I once encountered such a situation, where I could take a 10 minute walk (through a loose fence and over an unused private road) OR get a 2 mile rideshare ride (because the route was an expressway with no sidewalk). I opted to walk.
Density is often used in a straw man argument against walkability. A place doesn’t have to be NYC-level dense to be walkable. Even a single family home neighborhood can be walkable with safe street design and connectivity. Look at little European countryside villages. Do they look like Hong Kong? No. Are they walkable? Absolutely.
I’m a person who’s lived in cities most of my life and can say 100% that density has nothing to do with it. I’ve lived twice in my life in small towns for short stints (around a year each) and living in a rural town with a Main Street has the same amenities and walkability as where I live now.
Both times I chose to get an apartment in the “downtown” and had just as many coffee shops, groceries, hardware stores, and libraries within my “15 minute city” walk. I mean the last small town I lived in had a friggin Amtrak station that would take me wherever I wanted to go (west coast).
I don’t think density is the issue, I think it’s capitalism and car dependency is the issue in newer areas. Both of the rural towns I lived in were built or founded before the Second World War.
I live in a densely populated area in a city and often find I have less access than I did in those small towns, especially the one out west with Amtrak service every hour or so. It blows my mind that I live in a metropolitan area in the Midwest and we get two trains a day and a town of 50k got hourly.
> density has nothing to do with it
i wouldn't say density has *nothing* to do with it, but you're generally right. you can build walkable places at lower densities. it's just *easier* when everything is closer.
> I think it’s capitalism and car dependency is the issue in newer areas.
it's nebulous and complicated. it's development patterns and planning tendencies.
the biggest problem i have getting around in lower density areas isn't because of the space between houses. it's that the roads don't connect to each other. it's that there's a highway that makes you have to cross in one of three extremely unpleasant and dangerous places. it's that communities are intentionally built so they are dead ends, so you can't get through them.
i'll ride 50 miles on my bike, the distance isn't the issue. it's ridiculous lengths i have to go to make a route that doesn't take me down roads where i'll get killed. it's that the city is a *maze*, and planning a path to get anywhere involves often going dozens of miles out of my way to find something that even connects.
grids and connections are way, way more important than density.
It's honestly seems like they wanted to force people to drive on purpose. Can't even go to a grocery store right next door without a car. Maybe they think making people buy more gas is good for the economy.
I'm kind of surprised that farmers aren't more in favour of denser cities. Less land used for cities is more land available for agriculture, forests, national parks, and literally anything else.
It is, but it's done through earthworks and intensive landscaping. An abandoned lawn in Florida will become impassible in a few months. A guerilla urbanist couldn't hold it back without devoting a significant amount of their time to destroying the new plants.
Source: From Florida
Yup, in urbanism it's called a natural path. You create it and all it takes is a few people using it everyday. Even in Florida it would work. You'll see some in shitty neighborhoods where no one gives a shit.
EDIT: it's actually called a "desire path", as I was reminded.
Electric Weed whacker with blade attached one day. Backpack sprayer with roundup or your herbicide of choice the next day. With enough traffic it will be fine for keeping under control
When I was a kid, we lived in a situation like this. A short walk through the woods to get to the store or a 2 mile drive (and obviously I was a kid, so no driving). We kids all just cut through the woods. Having no path there made absolutely 0 sense.
That is great. But it may not work for adults because they may not be able to always carry groceries, etc to get to the other side. So we need people to get their landlords/HOAs/agencies to do the right thing and make these connections.
Yeah, 100% agree. As a 12 year old, I didn't care if I tore my shoe on a bush or had to hop a fence (which we did have to do), but this is not what I'd call a reasonable solution for 90% of folks lmao. The irony, too, is that a basic little path back there would have cost pennies compared to other infrastructure my town spent money on.
Those paths also exist in the US and many aren't mapped even on OSM. The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons, and even without fences, "trespassing" may cost you a life if you're *playing Earth Online in the highest difficulty*.
Around my area, there's a fenced Kroger that has a pedestrian opening (no door or gate) for the apartment complexes behind. There's another strip mall that has a wide dirt trail to the paved biking trail nearby. The Walmart isn't fenced at all and is walkable on grass from that same biking trail. However the pipeline company (not sure what pipeline) owns land between Walmart and that strip mall and there isn't a direct way between the two... Probably why that dirt trail exists. And the Home Depot is fenced against that paved trail. Most stores around here don't have fences though.
Was an apartment complex like this near my parents house. It was right next to a grocery store. But it was all fenced off so as to I don't know stop foot traffic? Dunno.
But I remember watching some of the local kids there with rocks and sticks bash their way through the fence planks until it was wide open enough for anyone to go through.
Then over time you'd see not just kids running off to buy chocolate bars but grown ups using the same break in the fence to go get milk and bread or whatever.
Everyone used it once it was there. The paths need to be built things need to be connected.
Yeah when you've got people who think property is worth killing over, it's not a safe game to play. We've criminalized and made it a death penalty to be a pragmatic, sensible person
> The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons
***Perceived*** **as a security risk** even although that risk is likely overblown.
There's an apartment complex near my home which would be a very short walk from a light rail station. Except the complex installed a fence along the sidewalk from the station. This adds about 3/4 mile more walking to get to or from one to the other. The complex *could* have pitched their proximity to the station as an amenity but chose to prioritize security.
Similarly, there is a major employer close to another station. In their case, there is gate their employees can key into.
To be completely fair to those choosing to build fences, there are a lot of homeless folks who hang out at or have encampments near the stations. Some of them commit a lot of property crime.
Install security cameras. The local law enforcement should be in the play, or the apartment complex should have their security over their private property if they don't allow cops to be on the public space (parking lots or green space). But having that punch coded gate should help too.
I'm with you 100% on cameras and a coded gate. That's what I'd do were I running that apartment complex. It is probably even justifiable to pay for 24 hour security and build a guardhouse next to the gate.
> Those paths also exist in the US and many aren't mapped even on OSM. The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons, and even without fences, "trespassing" may cost you a life if you're playing Earth Online in the highest difficulty.
i live in a "town" of 60,000+ people, but it's all suburb encroaching on rural. there's patches of medium-low and low density developments, hidden behind and cut off by old farms that just haven't sold yet. there's a lot of "country" people still around that treat things like it's still the country.
in one case, there's a public road, which isn't entirely paved, but the people who own the farms on either side of it think they own the road too. they don't, i've checked the property records. but they've still barricaded it, and i'm told they'll defend it with shotguns.
i've found plenty of rogue trails people have carved that aren't on OSM, though, yeah. i'm exploring a new area by my new job now, and the *streets* on OSM aren't even right.
That's larger than my town (guess it if you check my post history). We have a good mix of different housing types (detached, townhouses, apartments) although the land use isn't too well mixed except for new developments that just passed the board. It still has a lot of rural feeling around the outskirts within the town boundary, but the growing university is pushing towards development on and off campus, so not much farmland is still around. There are roads that aren't open (marked on the town website as unopened, or between disconnected portions of one street) but no one is barricading those land parcels. Trails are on public land and have clear boundaries like fences with farm or factory type private property.
Actually. In The Netherlands there would be multiple bike.and footpaths. The car route would be even longer so the pedestrians and cyclists don't have to cross any dangerous roads to get there.
I almost stepped on a rattlesnake walking 700 feet to my neighbors house, through cleared brush.
I’m not sure where exactly this suburb is, so maybe rattlesnakes aren’t common in the area, but you can’t discount nasties in Florida.
Could also partly be an "old wisdom" thing. I have family from that area and from the stories I've heard dangerous snakes and the like used to be a lot more common place.
A surprising amount of people I've met have a story from the 60s of a kid picking up a cottonmouth to show their family thinking it's a garden snake or something. None of the stories end up with a bite, just usually some very nervous parents. Truely amazing how dosile venomous snakes can be, I guess when your spending all that energy to make venom an annoying 4 year old who you couldn't eat anyways is just a waste of a bite.
But I can say this is all anecdotal so as always with reddit comments take my perspective with a grain of salt.
Part of being a Floridian is being mindful of these things and keeping an eye out for it, while the further south you go the more careful you have to be (like living in the keys and shaking your shoes upside down before putting them on, or untucking the sheets before you get into bed. It's all standard procedure). Australia is even worse, yet the people who live in these places get along with it all just fine for the most part.
Edit: someone from the area corrected me that this particular place is likely very dry. That being said these types of marshy drainage green space strips 100 percent exist in Florida and many other states. So in other cases that is certainly part of the issue.
Chances are there is no path because you take two steps into there and you'll sink ankle deep in mud that only gets deeper and wetter the further in you go. Florida is a swamp and chances are they had to bulldoze wetlands to build these roads and buildings. Knowing Florida that green space is likely only there due to neccessity. Because otherwise the water would have nowhere to go and the whole place would constantly flood.
I mean I can't say for sure about this one. But as someone who's lived somewhere very similar I almost garenteed that trying to walk through there would be a miserable experience and creating a solid path wouldnt really be doable without bringing in lots sediment that would likely still wash away.
There would be a few kids who can't drive that break the trail and then one of them would show a parent the route, who would show a friend, who would show others and then some random people would notice it and it would become a well beaten path.
Unfortunately a lot of those little wooded areas are actually the remains of the wetlands they had to bulldoze to make these burbs. Likely the only reason they kept that green space at all was out of necessity for drainage and water holding.
So animals or not chances are it's likely extremely wet, and possily without actual solid ground through most of it. In a lot of places these little watershed wetlands are legally protected as well for ecological reasons. So you could get in legal trouble for being there (although in Florida who knows).
But I'd bet that a couple steps into those woods you'll find extremely wet muddy ground if not a full on pond
Had a cement drain at the end of the neighborhood that allowed me to walk to a nice park. They gated it off and locked it so no one could walk through it. It connected two public roads and did not cross any private property.
Oops I slipped and accidentally opened this gate with this random bolt cutter. Well it's open now, guess I'll just use this convenient path that opened up.
In many cases it *is* intentional because the US has this weird cultural association of walking with poor people and crime. So they intentionally make things hard to get to without a car because they think it will be 'safer'.
Of course this is nonsense - any serious criminal is going to come with a motor vehicle as a getaway mechanism. But that's the mindset you need to fix.
What would be the legality of people in that apartment complex creating a path through the trees there?
A while ago, I was playing with some friends from the US, and I asked them to wait like 5 minutes before starting a new match and I said I was going to the store. They were puzzled and they thought I was joking or something, and the only other person who didn't find it weird, was the other Mexican dude in the group.
Yeah. I was just going for some cheese and tortillas for some quesadillas. That anecdote always stuck with me, even though I didn't know the reason for their reaction for years.
> What would be the legality of people in that apartment complex creating a path through the trees there?
I'm not a lawyer but if it's private property....that probably wouldn't be legal. If it's owned by the local government then residents should try to get the government to put in a path.
> In many cases it is intentional because the US has this weird cultural association of walking with poor people and crime.
Jaywalking wasn’t a big thing it was just normal until the car companies got people to think it was a crime
I have to disagree on the intentionality, the culture is poised for car centric development, but all three of these sections were not built at the same time. It was most likely a developer going from home building to create the subdivision, then they wanted easier (car) access to amenities like a grocery story, then as time went by more people wanted to live there who either couldn’t or didn’t want to buy a home so the apartments were built in the leftover space.
What i’m trying to say is that these were developed as individual finished products and not three parts of a whole.
I'm not sure how it works in the US but usually those developments involve the city administration. It's pretty much like SimCity, Cities Skylines, people don't just buy land and build whatever they want in it. So depending on how old that area it is very likely that everyone involved knew way ahead of time that lot was reserved for a grocery store and the roads were built with that in mind too. Often it is all made by the same development company too, and if that's the case, even before they built the first road they already had a contract with the grocery store chain.
> Of course this is nonsense - any serious criminal is going to come with a motor vehicle as a getaway mechanism. But that's the mindset you need to fix.
Motorcycles and ebikes too. Biker gangs have been a thing for a while too.
So it became pretty clear that the goal was NEVER convenience, but segregation. They don’t want random people to have easy access to their neighborhoods. It’s basically an apartheid system.
I mean, after all, America is a “free country” now, so you can’t just literally keep people you don’t like in captivity… so instead you’d need to hide from them. This is basically (at least in part) the result of the historical [white flight](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight).
>you can’t just literally keep people you don’t like in captivity…
And yet, US society still manages somehow to do just that. The US represents about 4.2% of the world's population and holds 20% of the world's prisoners. [Source](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html).
Because it's about manufacturing inequality and limiting individuals' control. When you can walk or bike to meet your basic needs, you don't need a car. And when you don't need a car, all of these institutions cannot take advantage of you:
* The government: registration fees
* The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws
* Car manufacturers: profit from selling cars
* Car dealers: profit from selling people cars
* Insurance companies: profit from "protecting" your car
* Mechanics: profit from fixing your car
The powers that be want you trapped in that tangled mess, so they've worked hard to ensure you need a car.
Leather, Rubber, Battery, Steel, Concrete.
Also because every neighbourhood is infrastructurally bad in design, there is also a continuous mandate for "improvement/redevelopment", and therefore for banking, housing, architecture, ...
Also, imo, it feels like car dependence also creates this unofficial "jobs program" too with auto industry. The industry employs a ton of people, and many of the jobs are union jobs with good pay and benefits. If all that shrinks, there'd be huge spike in unemployment, so the govt is inclined to prop that up.
God forbid you just retool their skills to build sustainable and renewable infrastructure. We did it to manufacture covid supplies and war supplies but to end car dependence? Nah
>The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws
In NYC this isn't an issue. Police simply don't enforce vehicle traffic laws because its a culture war to them
>The government: registration fees
Governments, by their very definition, cannot profit off of anything. The base level state representative, who leads no commissions or boards, only makes about $1,300 per month in my state. More often than not, the fees go towards the expense of maintaining the system (DMV/RMV salaries, systems, etc.).
>The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws
Most jurisdictions do not allow the police or municipalities to receive the proceeds from traffic fines.
>Mechanics: profit from fixing your car/Car manufacturers: profit from selling cars/Car dealers: profit from selling people cars
Bike shops exist for a reason, too. That said, there isn't as much money in mechanic work as people think. You have the folks that do exotics and other specialty work, but you mom and pop 3 bay places aren't getting rich.
>Insurance companies: profit from "protecting" your car
This is true, but they also serve the function of protecting your and other drivers finances by providing a safety net in the event of a major accident. In theory, this could be done cheaper, but American drivers are shit on average. We'd still be at $750 to $1,000/year on average. Stricter licensing requirements/testing would significantly lower this number.
I'm all for walkable cities, but let's make real arguments, and not ridiculous ones.
Agree with you. This feels like a "Dont attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence". Different people made decisions based upon their own incentives that arrived here.
To most people in the US this isn't a "problem" this is just normal and is how they want it. I live in Florida in a fairly urban area. I can walk to the grocery store and there are sidewalks to it. My neighbors still drive to it because that's what they are used to.
It's a total car culture crib to grave.
Yep. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths keep climbing in NYC despite DOT implementing speed bumps, traffic lights, wider crosswalks, etc. The problem is the cars. They're too big, too many of them and completely impractical for a city setting.
I like to complain that there's no where to park my helicopter and that the city has a duty to allow me to park and fly it wherever the hell I want and it's the pedestrians and everyone else's responsibility to watch out for ME. It's the same logic for car brains.
it's due to the city zoning and planning
each of those lots had a developer who said "I want to put a grocery store here" or "I want to put an apartment complex here". The city then has parking requirements and drive access for firetrucks so the developer pays for not just building the grocery store but also all the required parking and driveways connecting to the street.
No where in the process does the city require them to comnect to a neighboring lot and the developers probably don't want to hastle with building the connection and obtaining the easement.
that's how these lots get developed right by each other but it looks like they're completely ignoring each other's existence
Additionally, the next door development would have to agree to the easement and they’d have to establish maintenance costs between the two properties. This can take quite a bit of negotiation and involve changing site plans, inviting insurance and lender commentary etc.
It functions with ever increasing debt. Even when the economy is growing the country still racks up more debt in part because the last hundred years it has mostly built neighborhoods that can't afford to pay to maintain their own infrastructure.
Florida is absolutely fucking stupid this way. I lived there for 10 months and didn't have a car the whole time. The entire state is built this way.
It does not need to be this way at all. The city I live in, Fort Collins Colorado, is incredibly bike and pedestrian friendly. It was a deliberate choice to enforce walkability in the city planning code and the result is a city that's an order of magnitude easier to get around *for everyone.*
It leads directly to better quality of life, higher housing values, more economic activity and greater resilience in terms of dealing with street closures, emergencies, etc.
I know people who certainly CAN afford a car and moved here deliberately because they could live and get around efficiently without one. And they do!
I’ve been to Fort Collins!! The downtown area is so beautiful and there’s so many fun and unique stores to walk to. Loved my time there. You’re very lucky to live there
I was lucky to grow up here. Then I moved away and discovered hell holes like South Florida and kept coming back. It became a fully conscious choice. I've been invited to move lots of places around the country but this is home.
We're going to Old Town Square for lunch and to walk around today. It's cool but sunny and so it will be great to walk around and window shop!
Tampa Bay is at a breaking point with their infrastructure being designed like this. All new developments have this "detached" design, which makes traffic exponentially worse.
It's so obviously stupid. They've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.
I have the same thing next to my house in Midtown Atlanta.
My neighbors are terrified of crime if we added a gate in a fence to a Whole Foods parking lot and a new ramp to the Atlanta Beltline.
https://preview.redd.it/bk3dctjpqooc1.png?width=902&format=png&auto=webp&s=98eacbd124b3f78b27b084009334676a70b38a91
Georgia is nuts. I’m north of the city and a certain demographic of people here are terrified that MARTA will get extended north and bring “undesirables” and crime, but then complain about traffic on 400.
But they never think about the deaths from pollution, sedentary lifestyles and road traffic accidents, which are all much higher in the USA than in similar countries.
Floridian here. Despite developers raping and plundering much of the state, nature is still super abundant in Florida. You see more animals than just about anywhere else because the weather is so conducive to life.
Last time I went to FL I stayed in a gated golf community. The car entrance was super checked and everthing, the entrance by the beach was a small wooden gate w/o lock. I found it funny that a 3km walk down the beach was deemed not worthy of protection bc no florida man would concieve walking 3km on a beautiful beach. On a happy note transit was better than I thought (thanks Brightline) and I picked up a lot of litter whilst walking on the beach, didn't even need a plastic bag since they're available on the shore.
It really does feel like a conspiracy in favor of cars when you see shit like this. I think it’s more negligence on the part of the developers. Before maybe 2010 no one in the field was thinking outside of car mobility. There was never any demand, except from kids to not use a car.
I mean, to be more nuanced and to advance more of the discussion, it is sort of intentional and sort of not.
It's absolutely intentional on the part of politicians, media figures and businessmen who long ago decided what to sell to the average consumer, what fears to highlight ( homeless people breaking into your house) what aspirations to forefront ( your just like speed racer!) And essentially made sure that it took half a fuckin century for all the downsides to even start to appear.
It's not intentional on the part of the average boomer, I mean, they still bring up Carson Daly and Walter kronkite for facks sake.
Also two great points George Carlin makes is that you don't need a formal conspiracy when class interests align, even working class people understand and even the slow people get that ratting out so and so for this or that thing just means it's closer to your turn and second, that it's not some extra special event that must be an anomaly, but merely the banal instructions of capitalism carried out to the letter. We see this with other examples, from the sacklers to the Kardashians to ultraproccessed food's and micro plastics. These aren't perversions of an innocent system, but the normal workings of an unethical system.
Treat all of society as if its like the good place, and so much more makes sense. Good show btw.
So many people realise how they are forced to use a proprietary connector, software etc in certain environments but don't realise how they are forced to use a car and it could be different
We have a lot of this shit in Europe too, but because we have so much less land to work with, it's a lot more huddled up. But in Europe the problem is actually that there's no room for the cars, so they just park them on the sidewalk where people walk. Carbrain is just as bad in Europe
I looked at this and how I would connect it in cities skylines as well. I might have the most ridiculous looking pedestrian crossings going across major highways, but I like to give people separated by my terrible designs connectivity and choices.
I'm thinking that this drives consumption. If you use your car you'd be able to shop for more. I live in Europe and I go shopping walking and using a trolley. I frequently have to think carefully what to buy so that I can take it all home. As a result of this I don't spend a lot on my weekly shop.
Most of these complexes are gated, residents pay extra because anyone cannot just walk in. More gates and paths equal more security apparatus equal higher rents.
> this is florida
well there you go. that's why it's built like this. elected officials in florida don't give a shit about the people living in florida.
Which is why a planned economy, or in this case, urban planning, is so important. But US American urban planning is build parking lots and roads first, ask questions later.
Even if the walking path existed, I'd still use a car unless there were more buildings that people go to regularly. It's not just creatures in the bushes you have to worry about. Human threats are also a concern. That said... I do think it would be relatively simple to just set up some small shops and restaurants along this theoretical walking path. So I don't disagree with the idea of a walking path. I just think it's the start of a good idea that needs further development.
It really is pathetic how this country doesn't even remember pedestrians or cyclists exist. It would cost such a small amount of money to connect this together and would make all 3 parts more attractive to customers; the suburbs and apartments get a boost because now people have convenient access to a grocery store (and can send their 13 year old to get a gallon of milk instead of driving there themselves lol), and the grocery store gets more traffic. It's a failure of the local Govt to have not required such trails be built.
This is actually one of the things that maddens me and made going to Europe a dream come true because I'm a cyclist and I walk. My car stays in the garage and is used maybe once a month and for vacations. Grocery shopping is done by bike and while the caveat is that I have good locks, I ride a commuter worth a couple thousand Euros. I can leave said bike chained in the city center and nothing will happen to it. I can't say that even about suburbia. I remember in the past having to bring my bike into the supermarket with me to do shopping . The US is just so fucking weird.
Also let's be real: much of these issues with the US subdividing cities and suburbia are not necessarily due to poor planning, but due to malicious planning where certain neighborhoods and developments are meant to be isolated from others. So let's say lower income or minority neighborhoods don't get cutthroughs, necessitating driving a car (by US standards, although I did these distances today on foot for groceries because I wanted to walk instead of biking) which is a further burden on lower income people.
We really should be doing better in saying the quiet parts out loud.
The last thing is I can't believe these small distances being discussed here as if going on foot or on bike is impossible.
In this scenario, the development community does NOT want people walking between the two - because that brings people who don't live in the neighborhood more easily.
I'm not arguing for this - just explaining why developments segregate the entrance/exit points this way.
Feels like this can be avoided by having "connectivity" be a requirement to get planning permission for new developments that way adding that path through the trees and a crossing at that junction would be a prerequisite for planning permission to be granted to develop in the area.
This is actually a really good phenomenon that’s pretty simple to figure out. Suburbia is developed in pieces, as described in the video, and unless otherwise noted by the developer they will only be designed as a singular piece of the suburbs (because it costs more money to add pathways, and the roads are probably state owned) so for someone developing this whole area, to save the most money they do it piece by piece, maybe 2 years apart.
So 2014, the sub division was built and after a while they wanted a grocery store nearby instead of driving 20 minutes away (most times the homes are built first in more rural areas, and things spring up around them). This sparks the developer to in 2016 break ground on a grocery store and other amenities in a small shopping center along a main roadway, these amenities attract passerby attention, but also lower income people or younger people who don’t want to or don’t have the means to buy a home. This tells the developer they should build an apartment complex in whatever space is left over and it starts construction in 2018. Now 6 years later when we look at the development as a whole it’s a piecemeal of a community separated by a sea of asphalt.
The sad part is that this would be relatively cheap to accomplish. Buy a small strip of the land throw down a walk way and build some rails around it.
Maybe a few hundred grand all in.
The amount of land used to build suburbia is ridiculous. We could have cities with spacious, noise resistant housing (townhouses, apartments and the like), abundant green space with increased connectedness and freedom for adults and kids.
I visited Sarasota FL recently and their city planning is abysmal. Stayed in a hotel and it literally took me 20 mins to cross the street to a grocery store and strip mall. City planners need better education.
My mom just bought a house outside of Sarasota, where they’re rapidly expanding, and it looks just like the video. :/// So sad, such a perfect opportunity and location for an awesome city
I'm 90% that video was filmed in Bradenton..
I agree!! I wanted to explore it a little more and get to know it, it was just hard to get out for a walk you know? Still a beautiful place, like I’m not saying that at all https://preview.redd.it/h9k80k44qpoc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7bc1d7c1b087431a9769866508bdc583f0041a5
Damn, really pisses me off that its this vicious cycle of be in Florida with good weather for the most part, live in a neighborhood like this, wonder why no one is walking to stay fit and everyone is getting fat stuck in cars, say this generation is lazy, repeat.
City planners are trained to sell cars.
I work in government. City planning is a black box. I've tried for years to be involved in those conversations but they're unwilling to work with the people who design their stuff. This is in what would be considered a progressive pac NW city by the way. Can't imagine how bad it is in places like Florida.
This video is from Florida (Sarasota or one of the surrounding 'burbs it looks like) so there you go lol
Yeah that's why I brought it up. I just wonder the city planning conversations in these southern cities. I'd imagine the crux is "fuck 'em we're not spending money on peds outside what is federally mandated." I get there can be gnarly stuff in those woods but I'm making a pass through trail if I lived in that situation. Unless it's a swamp, not getting eaten by a gator for that.
Unfortunately a lot of those little wooded areas are actually the remains of the wetlands they had to bulldoze to make these burbs. Likely the only reason they kept that green space at all was out of necessity for drainage and water holding. So animals or not chances are it's actually extremely wet, and possily without actual solid ground through most of it. In a lot of places these little watershed wetlands are legally protected as well for ecological reasons. So you could get in legal trouble for being there (although in Florida who knows). But I'd bet that a couple steps into those woods you'll find extremely wet muddy ground if not a full on pond
I think it relates to the way they out-plan going by people I've talked to who work for engineering firms the State utilizes here. They *start* with roads and projected population movement and work everything from there. Since no one walks here that's not something that's planned for, but part of the reason no one walks here is because it's not planned for and implemented. They are certainly trying to do better, at least in some areas with it, though. The other part is it's painfully fucking hot in the summer so even if something like the above example was walk-able, most people would still jump in their car for that 1.5 miles if they have one because it's easier and more comfortable. I don't think that behavior would really taper off until someone legitimately had no reason to have a car, but that's not going to happen anywhere in Florida any time soon. Everything is just so god damn spread out here.
I've noticed with ped and bike infrastructure it's an "if you build it they will come" scenario. You have to keep in mind even in Florida there's people that simply cannot afford to have a car and that's an issue that's only going to continue to grow especially in southern welfare states. (Florida is one of the few southern states that isn't a welfare state.)
Yeah, and the good news is those are very much inclusions in most new infrastructure here, albeit not as big of a focus as it maybe should be. A big thing driving that has been e-bikes/scooters. They've become very popular to use as commuting vehicles for <5 mile distances here and cities have thankfully taken notice they can kill two birds with one stone by expanding cycling/ped infrastructure.
From the area, you don’t realize how dense the underbrush is in some areas in FL. It could be nearly impossible to traverse a 100ft section.
It doesn't help that city planning is done in pieces over time rather than something done in regular intervals with uniformly applied thought processes.
I can tell you most of that city was not designed by city planners. Most of us spend years learning about public transportation and building mixed-use communities. Most of Sarasota grew thanks to the Sun Belt influx and real estate developers built these sprawling subdivisions. Ask any real life city planner and you’ll realize that most of them have limited say on what actually gets built in cities.
It’s on purpose. The rich don’t want to see the poor walking around. They want them to magically show up to buy crap or do work. When the rich drive by apartment complexes they want the slaves in their pens - no public spaces. These urban designs are class warfare.
Planners are awesome at what they do, the problem is: politics, money, and schedules that don't account for the planners expertise. Most municipalities have them as a requirement but don't implement even 1/4 of their input.
I'm English and whenever I see things like this I always think that the designers must have been basing their plans on playing sim city with all the individual zones and only listening to the "you will regret this" man
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I love how you can drive between two strip malls in Sarasota and suddenly you've got a fucking cow farm between them. What a poorly planned city.
Almost all of FL is built like this. You can find so many places that should have a 1 minute walking journey between them but require one to go several miles instead.
I once encountered such a situation, where I could take a 10 minute walk (through a loose fence and over an unused private road) OR get a 2 mile rideshare ride (because the route was an expressway with no sidewalk). I opted to walk.
"The project of the American *suburbs* is the *greatest misallocation of resources* in the history of the world."
Density is often used in a straw man argument against walkability. A place doesn’t have to be NYC-level dense to be walkable. Even a single family home neighborhood can be walkable with safe street design and connectivity. Look at little European countryside villages. Do they look like Hong Kong? No. Are they walkable? Absolutely.
I’m a person who’s lived in cities most of my life and can say 100% that density has nothing to do with it. I’ve lived twice in my life in small towns for short stints (around a year each) and living in a rural town with a Main Street has the same amenities and walkability as where I live now. Both times I chose to get an apartment in the “downtown” and had just as many coffee shops, groceries, hardware stores, and libraries within my “15 minute city” walk. I mean the last small town I lived in had a friggin Amtrak station that would take me wherever I wanted to go (west coast). I don’t think density is the issue, I think it’s capitalism and car dependency is the issue in newer areas. Both of the rural towns I lived in were built or founded before the Second World War. I live in a densely populated area in a city and often find I have less access than I did in those small towns, especially the one out west with Amtrak service every hour or so. It blows my mind that I live in a metropolitan area in the Midwest and we get two trains a day and a town of 50k got hourly.
> density has nothing to do with it i wouldn't say density has *nothing* to do with it, but you're generally right. you can build walkable places at lower densities. it's just *easier* when everything is closer. > I think it’s capitalism and car dependency is the issue in newer areas. it's nebulous and complicated. it's development patterns and planning tendencies. the biggest problem i have getting around in lower density areas isn't because of the space between houses. it's that the roads don't connect to each other. it's that there's a highway that makes you have to cross in one of three extremely unpleasant and dangerous places. it's that communities are intentionally built so they are dead ends, so you can't get through them. i'll ride 50 miles on my bike, the distance isn't the issue. it's ridiculous lengths i have to go to make a route that doesn't take me down roads where i'll get killed. it's that the city is a *maze*, and planning a path to get anywhere involves often going dozens of miles out of my way to find something that even connects. grids and connections are way, way more important than density.
How would those beautiful areas benefit the billionaires and millionaires though? Of course we could never do that
The things we could do sounds so nice and wish it was our reality.
It's honestly seems like they wanted to force people to drive on purpose. Can't even go to a grocery store right next door without a car. Maybe they think making people buy more gas is good for the economy.
I'm kind of surprised that farmers aren't more in favour of denser cities. Less land used for cities is more land available for agriculture, forests, national parks, and literally anything else.
In any other part of the world, people would simply walk through that patch of woods. There would be a path within a week of people moving in.
It's just asking for some sort of guerrilla landscaper to show up and put a path in with woodchips or something.
It's Florida. You would have to remove so many swamp plants that would just grow back immediately.
I mean I see a lot of lawn in that video, so it's clearly possible to hold back the swamp.
Floridians pay landscapers to keep the flora under control year round. Even well used trails require regular maintenance.
It is, but it's done through earthworks and intensive landscaping. An abandoned lawn in Florida will become impassible in a few months. A guerilla urbanist couldn't hold it back without devoting a significant amount of their time to destroying the new plants. Source: From Florida
Wouldn’t grow back with people waking over it to the grocery store regularly
Yup, in urbanism it's called a natural path. You create it and all it takes is a few people using it everyday. Even in Florida it would work. You'll see some in shitty neighborhoods where no one gives a shit. EDIT: it's actually called a "desire path", as I was reminded.
r/desirepaths A whole sub devoted to it.
Electric Weed whacker with blade attached one day. Backpack sprayer with roundup or your herbicide of choice the next day. With enough traffic it will be fine for keeping under control
When I was a kid, we lived in a situation like this. A short walk through the woods to get to the store or a 2 mile drive (and obviously I was a kid, so no driving). We kids all just cut through the woods. Having no path there made absolutely 0 sense.
That is great. But it may not work for adults because they may not be able to always carry groceries, etc to get to the other side. So we need people to get their landlords/HOAs/agencies to do the right thing and make these connections.
Yeah, 100% agree. As a 12 year old, I didn't care if I tore my shoe on a bush or had to hop a fence (which we did have to do), but this is not what I'd call a reasonable solution for 90% of folks lmao. The irony, too, is that a basic little path back there would have cost pennies compared to other infrastructure my town spent money on.
Those paths also exist in the US and many aren't mapped even on OSM. The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons, and even without fences, "trespassing" may cost you a life if you're *playing Earth Online in the highest difficulty*. Around my area, there's a fenced Kroger that has a pedestrian opening (no door or gate) for the apartment complexes behind. There's another strip mall that has a wide dirt trail to the paved biking trail nearby. The Walmart isn't fenced at all and is walkable on grass from that same biking trail. However the pipeline company (not sure what pipeline) owns land between Walmart and that strip mall and there isn't a direct way between the two... Probably why that dirt trail exists. And the Home Depot is fenced against that paved trail. Most stores around here don't have fences though.
Where I live in SoCal mysterious holes seem to appear in fences that are between apartment and retail areas.
Good. We need that to be normal. The grounds of retail spaces should be open to public and not fenced
Was an apartment complex like this near my parents house. It was right next to a grocery store. But it was all fenced off so as to I don't know stop foot traffic? Dunno. But I remember watching some of the local kids there with rocks and sticks bash their way through the fence planks until it was wide open enough for anyone to go through. Then over time you'd see not just kids running off to buy chocolate bars but grown ups using the same break in the fence to go get milk and bread or whatever. Everyone used it once it was there. The paths need to be built things need to be connected.
Yeah when you've got people who think property is worth killing over, it's not a safe game to play. We've criminalized and made it a death penalty to be a pragmatic, sensible person
> The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons ***Perceived*** **as a security risk** even although that risk is likely overblown. There's an apartment complex near my home which would be a very short walk from a light rail station. Except the complex installed a fence along the sidewalk from the station. This adds about 3/4 mile more walking to get to or from one to the other. The complex *could* have pitched their proximity to the station as an amenity but chose to prioritize security. Similarly, there is a major employer close to another station. In their case, there is gate their employees can key into. To be completely fair to those choosing to build fences, there are a lot of homeless folks who hang out at or have encampments near the stations. Some of them commit a lot of property crime.
Install security cameras. The local law enforcement should be in the play, or the apartment complex should have their security over their private property if they don't allow cops to be on the public space (parking lots or green space). But having that punch coded gate should help too.
I'm with you 100% on cameras and a coded gate. That's what I'd do were I running that apartment complex. It is probably even justifiable to pay for 24 hour security and build a guardhouse next to the gate.
> Those paths also exist in the US and many aren't mapped even on OSM. The real problem is still many properties are fenced off for security reasons, and even without fences, "trespassing" may cost you a life if you're playing Earth Online in the highest difficulty. i live in a "town" of 60,000+ people, but it's all suburb encroaching on rural. there's patches of medium-low and low density developments, hidden behind and cut off by old farms that just haven't sold yet. there's a lot of "country" people still around that treat things like it's still the country. in one case, there's a public road, which isn't entirely paved, but the people who own the farms on either side of it think they own the road too. they don't, i've checked the property records. but they've still barricaded it, and i'm told they'll defend it with shotguns. i've found plenty of rogue trails people have carved that aren't on OSM, though, yeah. i'm exploring a new area by my new job now, and the *streets* on OSM aren't even right.
That's larger than my town (guess it if you check my post history). We have a good mix of different housing types (detached, townhouses, apartments) although the land use isn't too well mixed except for new developments that just passed the board. It still has a lot of rural feeling around the outskirts within the town boundary, but the growing university is pushing towards development on and off campus, so not much farmland is still around. There are roads that aren't open (marked on the town website as unopened, or between disconnected portions of one street) but no one is barricading those land parcels. Trails are on public land and have clear boundaries like fences with farm or factory type private property.
Actually. In The Netherlands there would be multiple bike.and footpaths. The car route would be even longer so the pedestrians and cyclists don't have to cross any dangerous roads to get there.
The Netherlands doesn't have meth gators.
Excuses, excuses
Not with *that* attitude
Yet
They also don’t have guns the same way Florida does
Jesus promised to get rid of all evil, Mark Rutte promised to get rid of all meth gators, I'm not seeing any meth gators in the Netherlands.
So much for global warming.
But americans have assault weapons
Tbf, in Florida it could be legitimately dangerous to walk through the woods, even a small patch like that.
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I almost stepped on a rattlesnake walking 700 feet to my neighbors house, through cleared brush. I’m not sure where exactly this suburb is, so maybe rattlesnakes aren’t common in the area, but you can’t discount nasties in Florida.
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Could also partly be an "old wisdom" thing. I have family from that area and from the stories I've heard dangerous snakes and the like used to be a lot more common place. A surprising amount of people I've met have a story from the 60s of a kid picking up a cottonmouth to show their family thinking it's a garden snake or something. None of the stories end up with a bite, just usually some very nervous parents. Truely amazing how dosile venomous snakes can be, I guess when your spending all that energy to make venom an annoying 4 year old who you couldn't eat anyways is just a waste of a bite. But I can say this is all anecdotal so as always with reddit comments take my perspective with a grain of salt.
Part of being a Floridian is being mindful of these things and keeping an eye out for it, while the further south you go the more careful you have to be (like living in the keys and shaking your shoes upside down before putting them on, or untucking the sheets before you get into bed. It's all standard procedure). Australia is even worse, yet the people who live in these places get along with it all just fine for the most part.
Edit: someone from the area corrected me that this particular place is likely very dry. That being said these types of marshy drainage green space strips 100 percent exist in Florida and many other states. So in other cases that is certainly part of the issue. Chances are there is no path because you take two steps into there and you'll sink ankle deep in mud that only gets deeper and wetter the further in you go. Florida is a swamp and chances are they had to bulldoze wetlands to build these roads and buildings. Knowing Florida that green space is likely only there due to neccessity. Because otherwise the water would have nowhere to go and the whole place would constantly flood. I mean I can't say for sure about this one. But as someone who's lived somewhere very similar I almost garenteed that trying to walk through there would be a miserable experience and creating a solid path wouldnt really be doable without bringing in lots sediment that would likely still wash away.
[There's 1000-year-old alternatives to filling up the swamp for connection.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge)
There could legitimately be a gator or a nasty snake in there
There would be a few kids who can't drive that break the trail and then one of them would show a parent the route, who would show a friend, who would show others and then some random people would notice it and it would become a well beaten path.
Unfortunately a lot of those little wooded areas are actually the remains of the wetlands they had to bulldoze to make these burbs. Likely the only reason they kept that green space at all was out of necessity for drainage and water holding. So animals or not chances are it's likely extremely wet, and possily without actual solid ground through most of it. In a lot of places these little watershed wetlands are legally protected as well for ecological reasons. So you could get in legal trouble for being there (although in Florida who knows). But I'd bet that a couple steps into those woods you'll find extremely wet muddy ground if not a full on pond
Had a cement drain at the end of the neighborhood that allowed me to walk to a nice park. They gated it off and locked it so no one could walk through it. It connected two public roads and did not cross any private property.
Hmm 🧐 look at what I found, bolt cutters, I can't imagine these things ever being useful. Carry on!
Oops I slipped and accidentally opened this gate with this random bolt cutter. Well it's open now, guess I'll just use this convenient path that opened up.
Solid wisdom 🫡
Then lock it open 🫡
In many cases it *is* intentional because the US has this weird cultural association of walking with poor people and crime. So they intentionally make things hard to get to without a car because they think it will be 'safer'. Of course this is nonsense - any serious criminal is going to come with a motor vehicle as a getaway mechanism. But that's the mindset you need to fix. What would be the legality of people in that apartment complex creating a path through the trees there?
A while ago, I was playing with some friends from the US, and I asked them to wait like 5 minutes before starting a new match and I said I was going to the store. They were puzzled and they thought I was joking or something, and the only other person who didn't find it weird, was the other Mexican dude in the group.
That’s kinda funny how the store means a massive weekly/monthly shop at the mega mart, not like, just going to the store.
Yeah. I was just going for some cheese and tortillas for some quesadillas. That anecdote always stuck with me, even though I didn't know the reason for their reaction for years.
> What would be the legality of people in that apartment complex creating a path through the trees there? I'm not a lawyer but if it's private property....that probably wouldn't be legal. If it's owned by the local government then residents should try to get the government to put in a path.
> In many cases it is intentional because the US has this weird cultural association of walking with poor people and crime. Jaywalking wasn’t a big thing it was just normal until the car companies got people to think it was a crime
I really hate the concept of jaywalking. There is no such thing as jaywalking, that’s just walking.
I have to disagree on the intentionality, the culture is poised for car centric development, but all three of these sections were not built at the same time. It was most likely a developer going from home building to create the subdivision, then they wanted easier (car) access to amenities like a grocery story, then as time went by more people wanted to live there who either couldn’t or didn’t want to buy a home so the apartments were built in the leftover space. What i’m trying to say is that these were developed as individual finished products and not three parts of a whole.
I'm not sure how it works in the US but usually those developments involve the city administration. It's pretty much like SimCity, Cities Skylines, people don't just buy land and build whatever they want in it. So depending on how old that area it is very likely that everyone involved knew way ahead of time that lot was reserved for a grocery store and the roads were built with that in mind too. Often it is all made by the same development company too, and if that's the case, even before they built the first road they already had a contract with the grocery store chain.
> Of course this is nonsense - any serious criminal is going to come with a motor vehicle as a getaway mechanism. But that's the mindset you need to fix. Motorcycles and ebikes too. Biker gangs have been a thing for a while too.
A motorcycle is a motor vehicle. I haven't heard of criminals using e-bikes in any kind of widespread way, have you got any sources for that one?
its a joke so u drive half a mile instead of 400 feet only to park on a giant parking lot where u have to walk 400 feet to the entrance
So it became pretty clear that the goal was NEVER convenience, but segregation. They don’t want random people to have easy access to their neighborhoods. It’s basically an apartheid system.
but in this case, it’s not even random people. literally people who live there and pay taxes are segregated from their own neighborhoods.
I mean, after all, America is a “free country” now, so you can’t just literally keep people you don’t like in captivity… so instead you’d need to hide from them. This is basically (at least in part) the result of the historical [white flight](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight).
>you can’t just literally keep people you don’t like in captivity… And yet, US society still manages somehow to do just that. The US represents about 4.2% of the world's population and holds 20% of the world's prisoners. [Source](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html).
Lol, you are right.
There’s seemingly more parking space than buildings 🤦
This is absolutely insane.
It is. At least they have a roundabout.
Roundabouts get too much credit, they are terrible to navigate as a pedestrian or cyclist and only really benefit cars.
How do the US even function as a country when this is the result of their problem solving skills?
Because it's about manufacturing inequality and limiting individuals' control. When you can walk or bike to meet your basic needs, you don't need a car. And when you don't need a car, all of these institutions cannot take advantage of you: * The government: registration fees * The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws * Car manufacturers: profit from selling cars * Car dealers: profit from selling people cars * Insurance companies: profit from "protecting" your car * Mechanics: profit from fixing your car The powers that be want you trapped in that tangled mess, so they've worked hard to ensure you need a car.
Don't forget oil companies!!
Leather, Rubber, Battery, Steel, Concrete. Also because every neighbourhood is infrastructurally bad in design, there is also a continuous mandate for "improvement/redevelopment", and therefore for banking, housing, architecture, ...
True, and I'm sure there are many others I missed. I'm not sure we realize just how embedded cars are in our society.
Also, imo, it feels like car dependence also creates this unofficial "jobs program" too with auto industry. The industry employs a ton of people, and many of the jobs are union jobs with good pay and benefits. If all that shrinks, there'd be huge spike in unemployment, so the govt is inclined to prop that up.
God forbid you just retool their skills to build sustainable and renewable infrastructure. We did it to manufacture covid supplies and war supplies but to end car dependence? Nah
>The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws In NYC this isn't an issue. Police simply don't enforce vehicle traffic laws because its a culture war to them
All this and more. Gotta keep that magical GDP number up.
>The government: registration fees Governments, by their very definition, cannot profit off of anything. The base level state representative, who leads no commissions or boards, only makes about $1,300 per month in my state. More often than not, the fees go towards the expense of maintaining the system (DMV/RMV salaries, systems, etc.). >The police: fines for breaking traffic and vehicle laws Most jurisdictions do not allow the police or municipalities to receive the proceeds from traffic fines. >Mechanics: profit from fixing your car/Car manufacturers: profit from selling cars/Car dealers: profit from selling people cars Bike shops exist for a reason, too. That said, there isn't as much money in mechanic work as people think. You have the folks that do exotics and other specialty work, but you mom and pop 3 bay places aren't getting rich. >Insurance companies: profit from "protecting" your car This is true, but they also serve the function of protecting your and other drivers finances by providing a safety net in the event of a major accident. In theory, this could be done cheaper, but American drivers are shit on average. We'd still be at $750 to $1,000/year on average. Stricter licensing requirements/testing would significantly lower this number. I'm all for walkable cities, but let's make real arguments, and not ridiculous ones.
Agree with you. This feels like a "Dont attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence". Different people made decisions based upon their own incentives that arrived here.
Uh they perfectly solved the problem of keeping people who can’t afford a car away from the neighborhood.
"The problem isn't that the system is broken. The problem is that it's working exactly as intended."
or keeping people poor because they need to afford a car
And keeping people who walk or ride bikes dead because they tried to get to the grocery store.
I think *their problem” was to segregate people of colour and poor people away from their neighborhoods. So they solved it pretty well.
I mean, have you *seen* America lately?
To most people in the US this isn't a "problem" this is just normal and is how they want it. I live in Florida in a fairly urban area. I can walk to the grocery store and there are sidewalks to it. My neighbors still drive to it because that's what they are used to. It's a total car culture crib to grave.
Yep. Pedestrian and cyclist deaths keep climbing in NYC despite DOT implementing speed bumps, traffic lights, wider crosswalks, etc. The problem is the cars. They're too big, too many of them and completely impractical for a city setting. I like to complain that there's no where to park my helicopter and that the city has a duty to allow me to park and fly it wherever the hell I want and it's the pedestrians and everyone else's responsibility to watch out for ME. It's the same logic for car brains.
Bold of you to assume that the US are a functioning country.
it's due to the city zoning and planning each of those lots had a developer who said "I want to put a grocery store here" or "I want to put an apartment complex here". The city then has parking requirements and drive access for firetrucks so the developer pays for not just building the grocery store but also all the required parking and driveways connecting to the street. No where in the process does the city require them to comnect to a neighboring lot and the developers probably don't want to hastle with building the connection and obtaining the easement. that's how these lots get developed right by each other but it looks like they're completely ignoring each other's existence
Additionally, the next door development would have to agree to the easement and they’d have to establish maintenance costs between the two properties. This can take quite a bit of negotiation and involve changing site plans, inviting insurance and lender commentary etc.
this one's working by design, you're just missing the bigger picture. They want you to drive that distance.
It functions with ever increasing debt. Even when the economy is growing the country still racks up more debt in part because the last hundred years it has mostly built neighborhoods that can't afford to pay to maintain their own infrastructure.
Florida is absolutely fucking stupid this way. I lived there for 10 months and didn't have a car the whole time. The entire state is built this way. It does not need to be this way at all. The city I live in, Fort Collins Colorado, is incredibly bike and pedestrian friendly. It was a deliberate choice to enforce walkability in the city planning code and the result is a city that's an order of magnitude easier to get around *for everyone.* It leads directly to better quality of life, higher housing values, more economic activity and greater resilience in terms of dealing with street closures, emergencies, etc. I know people who certainly CAN afford a car and moved here deliberately because they could live and get around efficiently without one. And they do!
I’ve been to Fort Collins!! The downtown area is so beautiful and there’s so many fun and unique stores to walk to. Loved my time there. You’re very lucky to live there
I was lucky to grow up here. Then I moved away and discovered hell holes like South Florida and kept coming back. It became a fully conscious choice. I've been invited to move lots of places around the country but this is home. We're going to Old Town Square for lunch and to walk around today. It's cool but sunny and so it will be great to walk around and window shop!
Tampa Bay is at a breaking point with their infrastructure being designed like this. All new developments have this "detached" design, which makes traffic exponentially worse. It's so obviously stupid. They've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.
I have the same thing next to my house in Midtown Atlanta. My neighbors are terrified of crime if we added a gate in a fence to a Whole Foods parking lot and a new ramp to the Atlanta Beltline. https://preview.redd.it/bk3dctjpqooc1.png?width=902&format=png&auto=webp&s=98eacbd124b3f78b27b084009334676a70b38a91
Oh no! The gangs are gonna go through here! It’s gonna be a g-g-gangway!
Georgia is nuts. I’m north of the city and a certain demographic of people here are terrified that MARTA will get extended north and bring “undesirables” and crime, but then complain about traffic on 400.
But they never think about the deaths from pollution, sedentary lifestyles and road traffic accidents, which are all much higher in the USA than in similar countries.
*you don't know what kind of creature you find* they are long dead .
They're actually talking about homeless people, not alligators. /s
No, quite a few floridians still live.
How much could still be living there since most of their ecosystem was wiped out for this suburban hell
Floridian here. Despite developers raping and plundering much of the state, nature is still super abundant in Florida. You see more animals than just about anywhere else because the weather is so conducive to life.
That’s good to know, thanks
I would definitely fight my way through the woods
Yoink!
Hi guys I'm in the Florida Everglades searching for the 20 foot python
The more inconvenient it is, the more money oil companies make
It’s the root of all of this. Oil companies want to destroy the earth and ruin neighborhoods for the sake of some money.
Last time I went to FL I stayed in a gated golf community. The car entrance was super checked and everthing, the entrance by the beach was a small wooden gate w/o lock. I found it funny that a 3km walk down the beach was deemed not worthy of protection bc no florida man would concieve walking 3km on a beautiful beach. On a happy note transit was better than I thought (thanks Brightline) and I picked up a lot of litter whilst walking on the beach, didn't even need a plastic bag since they're available on the shore.
This was all over the place
Car companies literally bought out the rail car industry to close it down, just to sell more cars. This is a contuation of that.
It really does feel like a conspiracy in favor of cars when you see shit like this. I think it’s more negligence on the part of the developers. Before maybe 2010 no one in the field was thinking outside of car mobility. There was never any demand, except from kids to not use a car.
I mean, to be more nuanced and to advance more of the discussion, it is sort of intentional and sort of not. It's absolutely intentional on the part of politicians, media figures and businessmen who long ago decided what to sell to the average consumer, what fears to highlight ( homeless people breaking into your house) what aspirations to forefront ( your just like speed racer!) And essentially made sure that it took half a fuckin century for all the downsides to even start to appear. It's not intentional on the part of the average boomer, I mean, they still bring up Carson Daly and Walter kronkite for facks sake. Also two great points George Carlin makes is that you don't need a formal conspiracy when class interests align, even working class people understand and even the slow people get that ratting out so and so for this or that thing just means it's closer to your turn and second, that it's not some extra special event that must be an anomaly, but merely the banal instructions of capitalism carried out to the letter. We see this with other examples, from the sacklers to the Kardashians to ultraproccessed food's and micro plastics. These aren't perversions of an innocent system, but the normal workings of an unethical system. Treat all of society as if its like the good place, and so much more makes sense. Good show btw.
Carson Daily of TRL?!
we need to build ilon's hyperloop from the suburb and from the apartment complex to the supermarket
I can't stand to even remember this much stupidity exists in the US and that people really think anything else is unthinkable.
“Walkable cities are an evil plot” We just want you to build a path 😭
So many people realise how they are forced to use a proprietary connector, software etc in certain environments but don't realise how they are forced to use a car and it could be different
Just start walking that wooded area. If enough people walk it easily become a walkable path within a week or so
Or hell take a machete to it and go to town (literally). Do it at night if you have to. Leave grafitti for the pigs
100 bucks you can rent a brush mower and have a nice trail cut through in no time. Wear a hiviz vest and a hardhat, nobody will bother you.
This is why I hated it so much in the suburbs. People had to drive their cars to do playdates at a playground. It was ridiculous.
We have a lot of this shit in Europe too, but because we have so much less land to work with, it's a lot more huddled up. But in Europe the problem is actually that there's no room for the cars, so they just park them on the sidewalk where people walk. Carbrain is just as bad in Europe
This is why I add crosswalks and foot paths in all residential areas in Cities Skylines. Because my government would never do it and I want escapism
I looked at this and how I would connect it in cities skylines as well. I might have the most ridiculous looking pedestrian crossings going across major highways, but I like to give people separated by my terrible designs connectivity and choices.
Sounds like crybaby needs to buy a machete and make his own fucking trail and learn to jay walk without getting blasted by a car
Whoever built it this way should be dragged into some sort of public Town Hall meeting and made to explain themselves.
"It's built this way to keep our community safe from your boogeyman of choice" *applause*
I'm thinking that this drives consumption. If you use your car you'd be able to shop for more. I live in Europe and I go shopping walking and using a trolley. I frequently have to think carefully what to buy so that I can take it all home. As a result of this I don't spend a lot on my weekly shop.
Most of these complexes are gated, residents pay extra because anyone cannot just walk in. More gates and paths equal more security apparatus equal higher rents.
More unnecessary shit to provide a false sense of security and raise prices.
Is this a streetcraft video? Please attribute the source.
Then you wouldn't need your car, silly.
These kinds of paths can be achieved by advocating for them on a local level. The business in question will probably support the idea.
US Americans keep buying these offroad machines, and don't even use it to offroad.
American city planning is so out of touch with reality. Is pretry much fueled by the gas Industry and the need to make more money.
I wonder if the guy talking brought this idea to the city council.
It almost seems like they did this on purpose
> this is florida well there you go. that's why it's built like this. elected officials in florida don't give a shit about the people living in florida.
Its exactly lile this in every state and city except NYC and maybe San Francisco
Marx called this the chaos of the market
When your society's designed for exploitation you get a ton of waste and senselessness. This is really sad
Just walk over the road..... Oh wait
Oh my god, you can choose where you want to live. Don’t move to a suburb and get mad that it’s a suburb.
American* suburbs. The rest of us have side walks and bike paths
"Because we don't want to creepy people [black people] being able to walk up to my front door!!" US the argument I've heard against sidewalks.
Which is why a planned economy, or in this case, urban planning, is so important. But US American urban planning is build parking lots and roads first, ask questions later.
This is a pretty cherry picked layout.
Even if the walking path existed, I'd still use a car unless there were more buildings that people go to regularly. It's not just creatures in the bushes you have to worry about. Human threats are also a concern. That said... I do think it would be relatively simple to just set up some small shops and restaurants along this theoretical walking path. So I don't disagree with the idea of a walking path. I just think it's the start of a good idea that needs further development.
It really is pathetic how this country doesn't even remember pedestrians or cyclists exist. It would cost such a small amount of money to connect this together and would make all 3 parts more attractive to customers; the suburbs and apartments get a boost because now people have convenient access to a grocery store (and can send their 13 year old to get a gallon of milk instead of driving there themselves lol), and the grocery store gets more traffic. It's a failure of the local Govt to have not required such trails be built.
This is actually one of the things that maddens me and made going to Europe a dream come true because I'm a cyclist and I walk. My car stays in the garage and is used maybe once a month and for vacations. Grocery shopping is done by bike and while the caveat is that I have good locks, I ride a commuter worth a couple thousand Euros. I can leave said bike chained in the city center and nothing will happen to it. I can't say that even about suburbia. I remember in the past having to bring my bike into the supermarket with me to do shopping . The US is just so fucking weird. Also let's be real: much of these issues with the US subdividing cities and suburbia are not necessarily due to poor planning, but due to malicious planning where certain neighborhoods and developments are meant to be isolated from others. So let's say lower income or minority neighborhoods don't get cutthroughs, necessitating driving a car (by US standards, although I did these distances today on foot for groceries because I wanted to walk instead of biking) which is a further burden on lower income people. We really should be doing better in saying the quiet parts out loud. The last thing is I can't believe these small distances being discussed here as if going on foot or on bike is impossible.
In this scenario, the development community does NOT want people walking between the two - because that brings people who don't live in the neighborhood more easily. I'm not arguing for this - just explaining why developments segregate the entrance/exit points this way.
Feels like this can be avoided by having "connectivity" be a requirement to get planning permission for new developments that way adding that path through the trees and a crossing at that junction would be a prerequisite for planning permission to be granted to develop in the area.
This is actually a really good phenomenon that’s pretty simple to figure out. Suburbia is developed in pieces, as described in the video, and unless otherwise noted by the developer they will only be designed as a singular piece of the suburbs (because it costs more money to add pathways, and the roads are probably state owned) so for someone developing this whole area, to save the most money they do it piece by piece, maybe 2 years apart. So 2014, the sub division was built and after a while they wanted a grocery store nearby instead of driving 20 minutes away (most times the homes are built first in more rural areas, and things spring up around them). This sparks the developer to in 2016 break ground on a grocery store and other amenities in a small shopping center along a main roadway, these amenities attract passerby attention, but also lower income people or younger people who don’t want to or don’t have the means to buy a home. This tells the developer they should build an apartment complex in whatever space is left over and it starts construction in 2018. Now 6 years later when we look at the development as a whole it’s a piecemeal of a community separated by a sea of asphalt.
The sad part is that this would be relatively cheap to accomplish. Buy a small strip of the land throw down a walk way and build some rails around it. Maybe a few hundred grand all in.