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Mar 30, 2024

News roundup: fully subsidized

“I think there is too much demonization on this blog, probably because it tends to be an echo chamber. It begins with labels like NIMBY, suburbanite, car sewers, and so on, for people who disagree

“I think there is too much demonization on this blog, probably because it tends to be an echo chamber. It begins with labels like NIMBY, suburbanite, car sewers, and so on, for people who disagree when it comes to housing, density, transportation and so on, but are not the ones trying to change an urbanist’s lifestyle.”

Public Transit debate in America is very classist and there’s no beating around the bush about it because that’s the reality of the debate at hand. A lot of NIMBYS are from my personal experience people who thumb their nose down at people who ride the bus when that is all they may have at their disposal. They view them as inferior There’s no sugarcoating that can be done to make the bitter medicine go down easier about it.

“The idea that suburbanite legislators care less about young people than urban legislators is untrue, and in fact if you read any eastside blog they would claim progressive legislators are the ones who have taken parks away from young people for the homeless, allowed crime to make it unsafe for young people to be out in public without adult supervision, and basically created an urban society that is hostile to kids because so often they don’t have kids. Suburbanites are people with kids who moved to suburbia for their kids to get away from the urban setting they see as dangerous and immoral.”

These suburban legislators are the same people who fight tooth and nail against new housing developments, upzoning, new public transit projects, and addressing the homeless problem. While the cities are partially to blame for this problem getting worse, the suburbs are just as guilty in this problem as well. We’ve seem time and time again, homeowners fight against anything that would address the problem of housing and homelessness because that would mean using taxpayers money on welfare and social safety nets even though said welfare and safety nets brings stability to homeless people. Finland had homeless issues and they addressed it by building housing for homeless people and now Helsinki only needs a small homeless shelter and it puts less of a burden on City of Helsinki to need specialized services for homeless people.

“The problem with transit in the suburbs is the same problem I have raised a million times: it doesn’t work very well. Mainly it begins with first/last mile access, because it is too expensive and difficult to provide first/last mile access to such a large and undense area, and to get anywhere is a huge waste of time, particularly if you work.”

It’s only this bad because American suburbs are not designed for anything but a car. A lot of the infrastructure is actually hostile to anything that isn’t a moving vehicle. I’ve been to suburbs around Europe during my 9 month study abroad and I can say with affirmation that it’s not that they are undense, it’s because they’re not designed for human scale. I visited Sweden and Copenhagen in September of last year and the suburban areas outside the city center were well designed for people; bikes, buses, and cars to coexist alongside each other. I walked from the train station in Humlebæk to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, a short 10 minute walk. There was a 2 lane road for cars but there was also bike and pedestrian lanes for people to use next to the road so it meant separation of of each mode of transport having it’s own separate lane. There was also traffic calming on the main road and on residential streets. All of these together make for a more pleasant experience for everyone.

“People drive in suburbia because it is a far better mode of transportation in suburbia for their lifestyle, and this exists in Seattle neighborhoods as well from West Seattle to Ballard to Rainier Valley and most other neighborhoods. There is a reason MLK is overrun with cars.”

It’s not a far better mode of transportation I can reassure you. The only reason why people drive in the suburbs is because they have to. Rarely is there the option to go somewhere without a vehicle in many cases because American suburbs and the surrounding infrastructure again weren’t built for anything other than the car. There’s a reason why European urbanism goes viral periodically in the US on social media. It’s because the American suburbs are dystopian hellscapes that are depressing to look at and live in. I know plenty of Americans who lament leaving Europe because they have human scale infrastructure that is so good it makes the American infrastructure look sad and horrible in comparison. Does Europe have crappy suburbs or infrastructure, sure I can name plenty of instances. But I can also point to many things American Suburbs can learn from European suburbs in terms of building for people and not just for cars.

“People in suburbia are not “anti-transit” either. They just don’t care, especially now with WFH and so much less commuting to Seattle for work, because transit does not affect their lives at all. It is like claiming they are anti-curling.”

I know plenty who care, there’s plenty in my generation (Millennials and Zoomers) who hate living in American suburbs and want to be living without a car to get everywhere and just walk or bike to go to work, school, rub errands, meet up with friends, etc. Or just be less reliant on it. I know plenty of folks who would gladly take car share or have a small vehicle for the ocassional trip or errand that is outside their normal trips if they could. I also know plenty of WFH people who would like to be able to hop on a car or train to go somewhere instead of getting things delivered or taking their car somewhere. We’re seeing people who are realizing that the Great American Suburban Experiment was on some level a farce of sorts and something that is killing us longer term.Like America has an obesity problem and it connects back to how the US has car dependent infrastructure that makes people fatter as there’s no easy means to walk or bike somewhere here without almost getting hurt in the process.

The Great American Suburban Experiment has played out and the result is one in my opinion of failure. We have a country where people can’t afford homes or rent apartments and in turn leads to the Homelessness epidemic that is seen as a point of failure to hollowing out of Downtown Seattle even though the reality is one where the suburbs have fought against building more housing to protect property values.

I’ll just leave this from Not Just Bikes as to why Dutch Children are some of the happiest on earth ( https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw )and something that should be seen as a reason why Americans need to wake up to the fact that this experiment can’t go on for any longer if we want to ensure our Children’s future across this nation is a better one.