On: The Road That Killed a City

[dexwiz]

You can do these kind of side by sides for about any American city that existed before 1880. For some reason people really think we are in a cultural dearth because we don't have the same brick general stores from 100 years ago.

[naikrovek → dexwiz]

it's not about the brick general stores, ffs.

100 years ago you could live in any part of any city or small town, hop on a streetcar or even walk a short distance, get everything you needed for your day to day life, and be back home in 15-30 minutes.

I can't drive to the nearest pharmacy to pick up a prescription and make it back home in less than 60 minutes, and I live in a sizeable clump of cities.

This is a US thing, and it's spreading. When I lived in Sydney, I could leave work in North Sydney, get on a train, get off at Central, go to the butcher and the baker and a small grocery and general store, then ride a bus home. Door to door in 30 minutes during rush hour.

In the US we've decided somehow that we should throw all of that convenience out the window in favor of accommodating cars at the expense of almost everything else, and it's sad. all cities of a given size look the same, now, and you can't do anything without a car or some form of public transport. there's no personality in our cities anymore unless you are in a historic district or at the city center where new roads can't be built and existing ones can't be widened.

[AnimalMuppet → naikrovek]

> I can't drive to the nearest pharmacy to pick up a prescription and make it back home in less than 60 minutes...

Weird. Where are you?

I've got three pharmacies five minutes away, and another one ten minutes away in the opposite direction. So, 10-20 minutes total, not counting wait time in line at the pharmacy.

[naikrovek → AnimalMuppet]

> Weird. Where are you?

in a metropolitan area of about 650k people.

Walgreens either paid a bunch of smaller pharmacies to close down and didn't open closer stores, or they all decided to close on their own in a freak of coincidence.

the nearest McDonald's is similarly far away. very close if I could fly, but 20 minutes each way by car.

[dexwiz → naikrovek]

Sounds like you live in a really shitty city to be honest. I have lived in car centric cities and walkable cities, and neither had that issue.

[naikrovek → dexwiz]

I've lived in a dozen metropolitan areas of 500k people or more, and this is one of the least shitty overall. certainly not the best (Sydney), but nowhere near the worst (Kansas City)

[salt-thrower → dexwiz]

This is a reductive straw man. People are saying that cities are dead or dying for many more reasons than the appearance of general stores.

[homonculus1 → salt-thrower]

The #1 reason is unmentionable

[AnimalMuppet → homonculus1]

So, are you actually going to state it, or are you going to make us try to guess what you're hinting at?

Don't "vaguepost". Either say something, or don't.

[homonculus1 → AnimalMuppet]

I'm not vagueposting. Everybody knows what I'm talking about (and that's my evidence that I'm right)

[yellowapple → homonculus1]

Your refusal to elaborate is definitionally vagueposting.

[mickdeek86 → homonculus1]

I don't know what you're talking about

[salt-thrower → homonculus1]

Literally no one knows what you’re talking about.

[guywithahat → dexwiz]

Someone has made this comparison between other cities https://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/

I agree though. Cities are cities because they're dense, having buildings larger than a standard house or 4-6 lane roads doesn't mean the city is dead it means it has more traffic to move