

Human-sized cities: Cutting cars from our urban fabric - mediaman
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html?pagewanted=print

======
mediaman
I posted this because I've lived without a car for seven years, and I never
would have realized how relaxing it is not to have to worry about it (though I
do use the ZipCar service).

And ultimately, as we reach peak oil and energy costs rise, I would like to
think that we will re-evaluate how we build cities and make them more "human-
sized", which could counteract many of the negative trends we face today
(obesity, lack of social community, etc.). Of course, the alternative is that
we find a sufficiently cheap source of energy for our cars beyond petroleum,
and we continue on building our merry suburbs -- but maybe, just maybe, it
doesn't have to be that way.

~~~
fortes
Out of curiosity, what city are you currently in?

I'm currently in NYC, although I used to live in Seattle carless as well.
Honestly, one of the big reasons it's easier in NYC is due to social norms.

Seattle wasn't bad, but NYC is definitely a lot easier to live without a car.
One of the main reasons: You're not expected to have a car.

In Seattle, people just assume you have a car and are surprised when you don't
-- i.e. you have to explain why you can't just make it out to some random
place to pick something up, etc.

In NYC no one expects you to have a car (at least not in Manhattan and most
parts of BK, etc) -- so people don't make assumptions that you can get
somewhere if it's not near public transit, or that you can haul something
somewhere.

Obviously, there are other things that make NYC quite nice for carless life
(delivery services, density, flat topography to name a few).

~~~
mediaman
I live in Chicago currently, which has a decent public transit system
(although there's no shortage of complaints about it).

I'd be interested in your experience being carless in Seattle. I might move
out there at some point and it would be nice if I could maintain a similar
lifestyle there.

~~~
fortes
There are only a few neighborhoods where you can do it without really
inconveniencing yourself: Belltown, Capitol Hill, and Downtown (Pioneer Square
/ Pike's Place market area). Other neighborhoods don't have as much density or
public transit coverage.

------
msluyter
When you think about it in isolation, our culture of commuting seems crazy.
Imagine designing a system in which people live far from their workplaces,
wake up every morning and drive en masse to their destinations, and then do
the reverse in the evening, devouring huge amounts of natural resources in the
form of energy and time in the process. You'd be laughed out of the room. And
yet, here we are...

Austin is currently developing a number of mixed use communities roughly of
the New Urbanist school, usually a mix of 3-4 story condos/apartments and
restaurants/shops. I'm hoping the trend continues.

Here's more info on New Urbanism: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism>

~~~
dkarl
Where are they? I'm aware of developments like the Triangle and the Domain,
but they feel like a love affair between plasticky high-end retailers and a
captive audience of consumers. The yuppie d-bag quotient at the Flying Saucer
was ridiculous last time I was there. I think the problem is that the Domain
and the Triangle seem to be planned by the same MBA types who plan malls, so
they feel like malls with housing attached for people who really, really like
the mall. By contrast, I like the pedestrian culture on South Congress and
even South 1st, even though those areas were designed for cars. I'm more
optimistic about old neighborhoods evolving in dense, pedestrian-friendly ways
than I am about synthetic neighborhoods having any significant effect. (Maybe
it's just because I don't trust real estate developers.)

On another note, living far from workplaces is a given if you want people to
have reasonable job mobility and reasonable home stability. You need a public
transit system so people can live ten years in the same place without being
tied to a single, possibly crappy job for that long.

------
mixmax
I think this is an Amwrican thing. I live in Copenhagen, and have never owned
a car. Neither have many of my friends, and it isn't a problem. There are
probably a few reasons for this

\- Many European cities don't have the American version of suburbs that
basically require you yo have a car. Homes and businesses are generallly more
intertwined and have sprung up over the ages around a town center.

\- Public transportation is a lot better. In the rush hour it's often quicker
to use public transportation than a car. A bike is the fastest.

\- It's socially accepted. As mentioned many people don't even have cars, and
it's not because of a lack of money.

~~~
erlanger
_"Many European cities don't have the American version of suburbs"_

That's because most European cities don't have remotely this kind of
population growth, let alone the space to accommodate it on the fly.

~~~
kiddo
I don't think it has much to do with population growth. I think it has more to
do with planning in advance where you want your growth to be. In the US we
just let developers put new houses pretty much wherever they want, which turns
out to be where land is cheap, which is usually far from existing
developments. In Europe the govt has more direct involvement and only allows
development to happen where they want it to happen.

------
sokoloff
First of all, I should disclaim that I love cars, own 5 of them (only 3 are
registered/insured at the moment), so feel free to view my comments through
that lens.

I believe that the car allows workers a significant freedom to choose
employers not based on which ones are within a few miles bike ride or a few
line changes of subway, but rather within an acceptable driving radius. And
for many people, myself included, acceptable commuting time in my own car,
with my own radio and peace/quiet is far longer than what I'd accept on the
green line subway in Boston, or waiting in the rain/snow/slush for a bus.

This freedom radius is particularly important when you consider that most
(American anyway) families have at least two incomes, so I must choose to live
where I can get to my employment and my wife to hers. With cars, at least in
America, that opens up a much wider range of options than if we could only
look at jobs on the subway. As it stands, we chose to live in Cambridge (a
"city suburb" of Boston); I drive; she takes the T. Either one of us could
easily change jobs to literally dozens of different employers without having
to move houses or change fields. There's significant value there.

Naturally, had American cities evolved differently, that might also be true
just by us living on a better-than-current-reality subway system, as most
desirable employers would also have located near subway stops, because that
would be a competitive advantage. As it stands now, companies needing white
collar talent intentionally locate where there is parking and good access to
ring highways, for that is a competitive advantage.

The network effects to overcome to make car-free living are daunting, and just
because you can find a few thousand people with lifestyles perhaps overly
suited to car-free living in planned communities does not mean that those
communities are scalable.

------
Luc
I'm 37 and I never learned to drive a car. I do own a car I inherited, which
my wife drives about once a week. We use bicycles, not because we're nuts but
because we live 5 minutes from work or work at home, and everything's close by
in the city we live in - restaurants, entertainment, shops, parks, etc. I've
always lived close to where I work, in cities where it's nice to live.

------
erlanger
Cars are unbelievably important unless you're either very wealthy or willing
to accept squalid conditions. Is there an invention more egalitarian than the
automobile?

~~~
khafra
I believe the "human-sized city" proposition is meant to remove the
requirement for wealth or squalid conditions from a car-free lifestyle. Let's
not forget that the car itself still requires more wealth than most people in
the world have access to. My pick for egalitarian invention would lean more
toward municipal public utility systems. If restricted to transportation-based
inventions only, the bicycle.

~~~
erlanger
Yes, you could go wherever you pleased in such a place, _within the city_. A
car allows its operator to travel great distances cheaply and quickly, seeking
only the road's permission.

~~~
khafra
I can't see how needing to hop on a bus, train, airplane, or rented car to
leave one's city requires extreme wealth or constitutes squalid conditions.
Anectdotally, I lived in Korea for a year without a car, and had no problem
getting around, both within and between cities as large as Seoul or as small
as Kanseung.

~~~
erlanger
Korea is a relatively small country.

~~~
stcredzero
The Korean peninsula is about the size of California. (Which is about the size
of France and Alabama together.)

~~~
erlanger
Yes. It's a small country. France is a small country too.

~~~
stcredzero
Hmm, out of all the countries in the world, how many are "non-small?"

    
    
        - US
        - Brazil
        - China
        - Canada
        - Australia
        - India
        - Russia
    

But that's a pretty dumb way to look at things. Population density and
frequency of travel to population centers is a much better way.

If California is like a "Small Country" then by your logic, European style
rail should work just fine there. The same goes even more for many eastern
states. They have higher population densities and much smaller land areas.

~~~
erlanger
No, land mass means a lot. A dense population is well-suited for mass transpo
as the primary option. A relatively sparse country cannot pull this off. Pull
out your globe...here are other actual, large countries:

    
    
      * Ukraine
      * Congo (DRC)
      * Argentina
      * Mexico
      * Chile
      * Turkey
      * Iran
      * Colombia
    

As you can see, in addition to those you listed, there many. Korea's freaking
tiny. It's not an insult, it's a geographical fact. Also, by their very
nature, there can only be so many large countries, so I don't know what you
were getting at in the first place.

~~~
stcredzero
Poor reading comprehension. The significant part is at the end. As for my
straw man, thanks for completing the list. Seems the majority of countries out
there are "tiny."

~~~
erlanger
Well, yes. there's only so much land to go around, and the majority is taken
up by these countries (left out desert countries like Sudan, Algeria, etc.
because they have little risk of over-expansion). North America is only three
countries but is the third-largest and the fourth most populous continent.
Three countries alone make up nearly all of Asia, the largest and by far the
most populous.

~~~
stcredzero
So? This is the _second_ notice: that the most salient part of my post, is
that it's more relevant to consider relative distances and population
densities. The US taken as a whole seems forbidding to rail. Specific regions
of the US can appear quite hospitable. Gerrymandering left as an exercise and
opportunity to display academic integrity.

