Libertarian And Conservative Arguments for Walkable Cities. | The origin of 15 minute cities.| Responding to Tucker Carlson & Donald Trump on suburbs | Responding to Urbanists, Chapter 1.
Libertarian arguments for walkable cities. Responding to Shane Killian on car deppendency The origin of the 15-minute city conspiracy theory. Joe Biden's War on Suburbs.
DISCLAIMER:
The people I link to do not endorse my content or views.
If you have a problem with what I say, talk to me about it, preferably in the comments section, not to the people I link to.
My urbanism articles:
Responding to Urbanists, Chapter 2: The best Urbanism Videos
Responding to Urbanists, Chapter 3: Bad Arguments Urbanists Use
Responding to Urbanists, Part 4: Comments Playing Devil's Advocate
Relevant playlists:
The best Urban planning videos condensed playlist
The Best Urban Planning Videos playlist
Responding To Urbanists playlist
Automotive Regulation Reform YouTube playlist
Automotive Regulation Reform Odysee playlist
(Image by Reddit user Fried_out_Kombi. If you wish for me to remove this image, please comment below & I will remove it.)
In early 2025, commentators such as Sean Fitzgerald, bka Actual Justice Warrior (New Yorkers RAGE Over Congestion Pricing Scam, Trump DESTROYS NYC Congestion Tax Scam), & Seamus Coughlin, bka FreedomToons, have criticized congestion pricing, & distrust the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Beforehand, Ontario Premier Doug Ford wanted to destroy bike lanes & replace them with vehicle lanes.
Figures on the right, such as Donald Trump & Tucker Carlson, also defend single-family home suburbs over cities.
There’s also people who assume that conservatives & especially libertarians oppose urbanism, walkability or mixed-use neighborhoods because they’re selfish drivers and/or are racist or something. Like this post on r/Suburbanhell which acts as if when you vote for a politician, you literally agree with every little thing they do or say.
And many older conservatives and libertarians view cities, especially walkable cities, with contempt.
So I’m putting forward 4 main arguments, along with additional commentary.
1. Raising Birth Rates by Making Dating and Parenting Easier, and Housing More Affordable.
In car-dependent cities & suburbs, parents are forced to watch over kids 24/7 or leave them isolated at home until the kids reach driving age, if they’re lucky enough to afford to buy & operate more cars.
Along with this, without easily accessible 3rd places, dating is also harder. Nightclubs, bars, & dating apps have proven to not be good places to date.
Contrast this to high-fertility places such as Israel or Central Asian countries, which have at least somewhat walkable cities with functioning public transit. If anything, it seems that Israel’s total fertility rate as increased as the country’s cities have densified.
-
This is talked about in
Depressing factors - Demographics and fertility - Part Two (38:32 to 40:54.)
The libertarian-conservative Romanian political commentator Lucian Valsan, better known as Freedom Alternative, has survived Nicolae Ceaușescu’s impoverished, totalitarian Romania, & Valsan called American cities ‘dystopian‘. I guess that’s because as a non-Anglophone, he’s accustomed to experiencing lively walkable cities, unlike anglophones who are accustomed to pedestrian-unfriendly, car-centric cities, which feel dead to him.
-
A theory that pronatalists Simone and Malcolm Collins have as for why there now are so many regretful parents is because modern American & Canadian parents commonly practice intensive parenting, which is unnaturally stressful for the parents.
The Rise of Parents Who Regret Having Children
-
“Well explained in many areas. Another huge obstacle you didn't mention is our car dependent infrastructure. Houston is the most car oriented city on the planet & it's very hard to socialize here cause it's a land of highways, red lights, & gas stations.
It's understated how a city's design can affect socializing. TV shows always take place in some pedestrian town or city where you can meet a new girl by walking down the street from your house.
In Houston everyone is in their cars most of the time. So even though Houston is very overpopulated, we don't get to talk to each other alot cause we're all stuck in traffic.”
- YouTube user @SlashinatorZ/Evan Joestar, Why Modern Dating is Broken.
This was briefly touched on by Behold the Magic of Walkable Streets!.
-
“More population density, and less restrictions on housing and mixed use zoning means that people will be able to afford to raise their kids. If you want people to have more kids, then you should be in favor of multifamily homes, and mixed use zoning”
- YouTube user @kaydenl6836, Can The Right Do Urbanism Right?//Ft. CityNerd.
-
Increasing the affordability of housing would also help tip the scale for anyone on-the-fence about having children.
-
If you’re a true patriot, you’d want your nation’s total fertility rate to increase.
I hope you love your nation more than you love seeing your house price increase five-fold like a real-estate speculator.
I hope that you love your nation more than you hate the most mild inconveniences like needing to drive for a couple more minutes because streets were redesigned or children & teenagers having actual lives outside of their homes.
-
-
2. Improving Social Cohesion and Trust.
Eliminating Euclidian single-use only zoning makes walkable cities viable, which make third places viable. Third places improve social cohesion by bringing together different people. And it’s way easier to have third places in a walkable city than a car-centric city.
The Great Places Erased by Suburbia (the Third Place)
Suburbia Doesn't Have to Feel Lonely
Reducing commute times also helps. Less time spent commuting is more time that one can spend with family, friends, community, or otherwise just enjoying life.
If people knew each other, they could help each other on an individual-to-individual or mutual aid group-to-individual basis instead of relying on the government for welfare is just one benefit out of many.
For example, if you know someone has lost their job, you, your family, neighbors, etc can come to their aid, & since you know this now unemployed person, you trust them to not to use the money you give them to, for example, buy drugs.
More third places would also decrease social isolation & mental disorders. This would in turn cut down on the political polarization & radicalism that we’re seeing now. People would be more likely to know people on the other side of the aisle as decent people who care about their community & nation, not as demons in a conspiracy plotting to screw them over like it is depicted in the media. People are also less likely to join cults or radical political movements (which psychologically operate similarly, if not the same as cults) if they had actual friends.
Many conservatives lament the lack of community. Libertarians complain about people begging the government for taxpayer’s money. If you want to fix these problems, we’ll need to bring back & strengthen community. Communities can be strengthened with 3rd places
Conservatives & libertarians, do you really value bending over backwards to theoretically make driving as convenient as possible & put everyone into McMansions at the cost of of literally everything else in terms of quality of life? I have videos later in this article that address this.
The right-wing commentator Black Pigeon Speaks also supports walkable cities (I do not endorse BPS, I’m just mentioning him).
Rethinking Suburbia and Urban Sprawl in America
Triumph of the City: Urbanism & Why it Matters
-
Fraternal Societies and Mutual aid. - Why social safety nets don't need the state.
The decline of American social capital is talked about in the book Bowling Alone by Robert D. Puntnam.
-
-
3. Eliminating the Need For Eminent Domain to build highways.
Highway expansion tends to involve eminent domain. And eminent domain, taking private property, sounds socialist, doesn’t it?
-
4. Making Infrastructure Maintenance more Affordable. Plus Other Economic Benefits.
Just listen to Strong Towns, which makes fiscal conservative/libertarian arguments against suburban sprawl, car-centric infrastructure, & Euclidian/single-use only zoning.
This is summarized in Not Just Bikes’ playlist Strong Towns.
We can easily save hundreds of billions of dollars a year if we cut back on suburban sprawl. If people aren’t forced to own or lease cars, people can save easily billions of dollars worth of wealth.
The True Cost of Car Ownership!
Also, studies show that cyclists & pedestrians are better customers than drivers.
Why Bicyclists Are Better Customers Than Drivers for Local Business.
Cyclists and Pedestrians Can End Up Spending More Each Month Than Drivers.
-
The economy would benefit by billions if vehicular accidents were lower from medical bills, lost productivity & property damage.
Loop Cars Are A Disaster For Society -- Here Are the Numbers
-
Obesity costs Americans over three-hundred BILLION dollars a year. This could be drastically reduced if people could walk to where they need & want to go. For most people, sloth is probably bigger than gluttony at causing obesity.
Reducing obesity would even help national security.
Obesity is a National Security Issue: Lieutenant General Mark Hertling at TEDxMidAtlantic 2012
-
5. Improving Food Security And Preserving Rural Land.
The United States of America destroys over 1,200 square miles of farmland & nature every year to build sprawling suburbs. The Canadian Province of Ontario destroys about 175 acres A DAY to building sprawling suburbs. And this is a choice.
If cities & suburbs were denser, we can save so much farmland & nature.
Urban sprawl erodes rural lands - FarmProgress
Ontario loses 175 acres of farmland to urban development a day, says farmers group - CBC News
Along with this, if we cut back on suburban sprawl, rural people who like their tight-nit communities & rural lifestyles get to keep said things & are less likely to come into conflict with city-dwellers.
The Origin Of 15-minute Cities, Responding to Shane Killian on Car Dependency, and Why Cars Are Overrated For Freedom.
The concept of 15-minute cities is conflated with the concept of the Low Traffic Neighbourhood & Low Emissions Zone. Because many Low Traffic Neighborhoods were introduced in 2020, which coincided with the COVID-19 lockdowns & Carlos Moreno popularized the term “15-Minute City”, a lot of political dissidents & people in the alternate media thought 15-minute cities were open-air prisons.
In hindsight, that was silly, but a lot of well-meaning people saw the COVID-19 lockdowns as state overreach, & it’s natural for us mammals to get paranoid after we’ve been abused, & we feel like we need to keep our metaphorical third-eye open to make sure we’re not going to get screwed over again.
ShortFatOtaku/Dev & Lucian Valsan/Freedom Alternative have both talked about this. Both opposed the COVID locksdowns, & Valsan survived survived Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania, so he knows authoritarianism & totalitarianism are, & 15-minute cities are not (inherently) authoritarian.
The 15 Minute City Conspiracy Theory, Explained
15 minute smart cities in practice
-
I think suburbanites who want a lot of space to themselves would be happier in real rural areas anyway. Like I said before, if we cut back on suburban sprawl, rural people who like their tight-nit communities & rural lifestyles get to keep said things & are less likely to come into conflict with city-dwellers.
If You Hate Density, Maybe Don’t Live in A City
Single-Family Zoning: Just “Giving People What They Want”?
How many suburbanites do you know are farmers or preppers (gardeners don’t count)? Exactly.
Most suburban plots don’t have enough backyard space for a viable aquaponics farm.
-
Shane Killian’s points in ✔July 2024 AMA - Answers are very much like Randal O'Toole’s points. The best video that responds to this is
Inside The Mind of Urbanism's Biggest Critic
-
“I don’t feel unsafe walking and cycling here, so the safety promises of autonomous vehicles don’t really seem to matter that much. There isn’t a lot of traffic because there are viable alternatives to driving. People aren’t forced to drive here, so the only people in cars are those who need to drive, or those who really want to drive.
Self-driving cars are supposed to provide mobility to children, the disabled, and the elderly. And yet I see all of those people getting around just fine in Utrecht. Because universal access to mobility isn’t a fundamental issue: it’s a problem caused by car dependency.
Would this guy (a man in a wheelchair) be better off in a self-driving car? Maybe, I didn’t ask him. But it’s not like he’s unable to get around independently here, like would be the case where I’m from (London, Ontario).” - How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it).
-
When it comes to cars, there’s a lot of restrictions. In order to drive, you need to;
Get a driver’s license.
Attach a license plate on the back (and in many jurisdictions, on the front) of your vehicle.
Buy insurance.
Get your vehicle inspected (in some jurisdictions).
No driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
That’s just to name a few restrictions.
I wouldn’t say all of this is state overreach, but it absolutely is state control, as that you’re operating a potentially dangerous machine in shared public spaces. As for insurance, if you cause an accident, you must be able to pay for damages to property, & especially persons. When a bunch of people are sharing space, they’re going to have to agree to a few rules.
-
When it comes to privacy, the Mozilla Foundation has found that all major American, South Korean, Japanese, & European (not just Chinese) car brands collects the data of their users & routinely sells that data to databrokers. The majority will even give data to law enforcement or other government agencies on a mere request, not a warrant or court order.
Only Renault & Dacia (which is owned by Renault) allows owners to delete their data. But Renault & Dacia aren’t available in the United States & Canada.
After Researching Cars and Privacy, Here’s What Keeps Us up at Night - Mozilla Foundation
Car Freedom – #SolutionsWatch - Corbettreport
Interview 1923 – Your Exploding Car is Spying on You (NWNW #576) | The Corbett Report
Ford patents method to spy on drivers to push them ads; no, really...
Lobbyists imply right to repair helps DOMESTIC ABUSERS, pushes RACISM and REDLINING!
Why I use the R word to describe manufactures with no regrets
-
Oh, & Chinese car manufacturers are even worse;
China Is Flooding the World With Cheap Cars - China Uncensored
You Might Want To Be Careful About What You Say In Your Car... - China Uncensored
-
The right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossman talks all about this. And all of this is a reason to support free/libre open-source software.
-
And that’s besides the cost of buying, fueling, & maintaining a car.
If you walk, cycle, or take transit, you don’t need to worry about any of that.
This was talked about in Oh The Urbanity!’s video, “15-Minute City” Conspiracies Have It Backwards, but YouTube deleted it.
-
Sometimes, the customer doesn’t know what they truly want. Often, when you water-down something great, you don’t have the great thing anymore, & you have something mediocre. For example, changing the Jeep Wrangler to be better on the road, when the Wrangler (& original Jeep) was never meant to be the best on the road, we more or less got the Jeep Renegade, just some mediocre crossover.
(That was inspired by Gaston Dead at 94: How Will This Affect the Future of GLOCK?)
For you shooters out there, let me make the example of liking a tool vs what’s the best tool for the job.
For gun people, you might like long-range target shooting, but a bolt-action, or especially single-shot target rifle is not a good weapon for home defense, much less every day carry. Likewise, you might like plinking with .22lr pistols, but if you’re a soldier or SWAT cop, it won’t cut the mustard.
Likewise, you might like cars, but cars aren’t the best tool for everyone to get around a city with.
-
An example of a walkable suburb is Riverdale, Toronto, which I think is a good balance between house size & walkability.
Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)
Just because your suburb is walkable does not mean that you have to live in a tiny house. You can go to house plan sites, set a narrow width, & specify the car garage capacity & number of bedrooms & bathrooms you want.
House Plan #196-1032 | 3-Bedroom, 2535 Sq Ft Contemporary Plan with Sun Room
House Plan #168-1143 | 4-Bedroom, 3479 Sq Ft Beach House Plan with Photos
You can even have a spacious ‘garage apartment‘ in a hypothetical Japanese-style super dense city (I do think Japanese-style density is rather overkill, though).
Modern House Plan 932-42 | 1509 sq ft, 3 bed, 2 bath, 2 floor, 2 garage
-
If we merely eliminate single-use zoning, also known as Euclidian zoning, we can make out cities & suburbs so much more walkable & reduce vehicle miles traveled.
-
Even though I’m what politically what people call a ‘market urbanist‘, I’ll admit, I think bad urbanism & sprawl can be a product of culture, not just government policy. Examples are unincorporated Texas (areas outside of incorporated municipalities, as that county governments have almost no zoning power in Texas) & former British Caribbean countries (This Tiny Island has Insane Traffic talks about the Bahamas, but other former British Caribbean countries are also car-centric to say the least).
I’d like to mention that I’ve read supporters of Georgism say that a Land Value Tax would discourage wasteful land use. While I do lean towards Georgism, it’s outside the scope of this article.
Why do conservatives and libertarians oppose congestion pricing?
I think one major reason that conservatives & libertarians object to congestion charges but not transit is because many of them view roads as infrastructure that they already paid for, while they view transit as a service.
I think another reason is pigeonholeing. For example, conservatives & libertarians see leftists supporting Policy X, which makes them assume that Policy X is a bad idea, & thus, they should oppose Policy X.
Charels Marohn, a Minnesota Republican, believes that congestion pricing is justifiable.
Is congestion pricing good or bad?
-
If you, for example, want to book a flight to a popular city during tourist season, you might get a congestion charge. We don’t see it as our god-given right to fly between New York City & London for the price of a no-name regional flight.
-
(This reminds me of digital privacy & Free and Open Source Software Advocate Mental Outlaw, despite himself being been critical of YouTube, agreeing with Sebastian Linus that pay-walling higher-quality videos is economically reasonable or even justified because of how resource-intensive high-resolution videos are (YouTube Is Blocking Ad Blockers).)
Are Walkable/Transit Cities Worse for Driving?
Some people are concerned that transit & walkable cities could be worse for driving. I think that transit-based & walkable cities aren’t worse for driving. RMTransit has shown that it takes about as much time to drive the same distance in Hong Kong, a walkable transit city, than Houston, a car city.
I’d argue that if we had alternatives to driving, being public transit, walking or cycling, the roads would be freed up for people who need or want to drive instead of being jammed up with idiots, & driving would be way faster while being way less stressful & way less dangerous. Your worst obstacle is usually other drivers.
Buses & trams should have their own lanes, because if they’re stuck in the same traffic as cars, they won’t be viable alternatives to driving, which pushes more people into cars, making the problem worse.
I’d argue that going out of our way to make driving easier actually makes driving only marginally more convenient at best, maybe less convenient at worse.
“On multi-lane roads, drivers will merge in & out, which causes backups, & this only gets worse the wider the road gets. The only real place where multiple lanes are needed is at intersections, where turning cars should be out of the way of through traffic, so turning lanes are useful.”
More Lanes are (Still) a Bad Thing
“The thing is even with 100 lanes you would have backed up traffic. Both because people drive really badly & cant switch lanes, & because the off ramps (or the roads they connect to) dont have that same capacity.
In fact more lanes can cause more traffic with bad drivers even with the same amount of cars”
- YouTube user @user-wq9mw2xz3j/[;', The Real Reason You're Sitting in Traffic.
-
In Dutch cities, while cars do need to take circuitous routes to their destinations at seemingly slower speeds on on Anglophone stroads, they actually travel faster because they’re continuously moving & not slowing or stopping at intersections or for entering & exiting vehicles on a stroad. Cars continuously moving also reduces wear & tear on drive trains, brakes, & tires, & improves fuel economy & reduces air pollution (all cars, except for hybrid & electric cars, get worse fuel economy in cities than on highways).
-
If you look on Google Maps’ street view, there’s regular bus service by private companies in Mexico. If we make our cities & suburbs mixed-use & have dedicated transit lanes, we can definitely have buses in the rich Anglophone world. Before around World War II, most streetcar companies were private & didn’t need taxpayer’s subsidies.
-
Why Transit Cities are Better for Everyone
The Best Country in the World for Drivers
Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Traffic solutions & the Downs-Thomson Paradox
Boost volume The Problem with Faster Highways (Downs-Thompson Paradox) | Game Theory Puzzles
You can either use road space efficiently, or you can have cars.
The Real Reason You're Sitting in Traffic
Los Angeles is a Parody of How You Move People in a City
-
As a bonus, the space inefficiency of cars is demonstrated in former General Motors brand Saturn’s “Sheet Metal“ commercial. I wish Jason Slaughter would see & feature it.
Comments.
I ask that you go read the comments of Why City Design is Important (and why I hate Houston), which many people whose parents are disabled, come from poor families or are disabled themselves are missing out on life because they can’t get around a car-dependent city.
-
“Honestly our parents and grandparents have forgotten how young adults and teens want to have fun like they did. I remember when I was a teen in this shopping center across from my highschool a small concert venue/arcade/pool hall/CD store opened which was the only one that would carry local bands. For a half a year it was the place to go Friday nights for teens to see some local bands and just to hang out.
Of course all the adults more so the older ones immediately started complaining and demanding it be closed down because of the "noise" and them automatically thinking teens hanging out equaled trouble. The police were getting tired of the false calls from the neighbors and them coming to start trouble and then trying to blame the teens.
Unfortunately the place got forced down for if I remember right some obscure ordinance that said that type of business was to small to be a concert hall. I remember when the local news covered the place closing they had this one neighbor say she was happy it finally closed because it was nothing but trouble from the day it opened when not a single arrest was ever made or any other offense.”
- YouTube user johncase1353, How Commute Culture Made American Cities Lifeless (edited for brevity).
-
“You're creating a false dichotomy. European suburbs are much better, Small town USA though mostly hollowed out were much better, small cities are alright, villages are nice too. The only options aren't urban hives or american suburbs.
Suburban homes are designed for privacy, with large lots, and fences which discourage neighborly interaction. When the vast majority of your social interaction is only with your siblings and parents that IS isolating. Community is much more than just family. Suburbs are car centric. In order to get anywhere or do anything you must drive. This increases the friction for casual communal interaction. It also makes us less active and more obese, not to mention all of the accident deaths, particulates and pollutants driving produces. People like kids or the elderly who can't drive are stranded within the confines of the rows of identical houses. There is no destination, nowhere to go except to other rows of houses which means less people walking and more people driving. It also means adults must drive to work usually from far outside the city to the city center which increases congestion and commute time which means less time for better more social activities. American suburbs lack communal places like markets, shops, cafes, boutiques, squares, community centers, bars, grocery stores, dance halls, etc... Mix use is the way to go but we made those illegal in most places (zoning/building regulations).”
- YouTube user @tann_man/Tannman.
-
“I would say boomer conservatives are clinging to the suburbs and car dependency as the standard. Younger conservatives are pretty unified with liberals on a desire for esthetic, walkable cities and towns. There are some details to work out because most of us have never known that life, but we all agree that American infrastructure is an ugly, impractical, anti-human, soul crushing, modernist nightmare. Walkability doesn't need to mean urban density. Even Mayberry was a walkable town. I would love to be able to have the option to walk to my kids' school or to the grocery store or to church.“
- YouTube user @IrishTwinMaker, Can The Right Do Urbanism Right?//Ft. CityNerd.
-
“As a young person from Spain, I always found bewildering why would anyone live in the suburbs willingly, and I look at the gradual adoption of suburbia by my fellow countrymen as some kind of Zerg creep toxic mucus infecting our (previously) beautiful cities.
I mean, I understand that there are many people with many different interests from my own. Some people like the hustle and bustle of the city, some prefer to live near nature and the countryside, some have children, some are single, some people like personal space, other people likes to socialize, and so on.
But the suburbs strikes me like the very worst of the two worlds, rolled into one mess of distopian urbanism:
The car dependence of the countryside
The lack of nature and asphalt domination of the city
The lack of cultural activities and amenities of the countryside / small towns
The social isolation of the countryside
The high prices of the city
The homogenity of small towns
The lack of community of the cities
The lack of services of the countryside
Seriously, what is there to love? The only two positive aspects that I can think of suburbia is the lack of noise pollution, and the, huh “safety”.
But there are also many cities that are safe (child-friendly, even) and small towns / countryside ranks even higher on these two positives, so what gives?
Suburbia only offers the illusion of control that isolation brings, in exchange of many other important things for the mental and physical well-being. I can’t even fathom the whole “good place for rising kids” argument.
Kids and teens would have their freedom of movement severily crippled, and most middle class youngsters start doing drugs out of sheer boredom. A childhood in a heavily controlled, homogenized, isolated, sanitized and regulated enviroment such as suburbia is not a childhood that is conductive for preparing you for the wider, much more chaotic world. Many of my friends seems to think in the same way, and are rising their kids in cities and the countryside. They are all fine and safe, rest assured.
The only distinct advantage of suburbia for me is that -some- of them offer a shorter commute. Which is a good thing, but since I have other interests outside my job, is not good enough for the trade-offs.”
- Eduardo Marqués Collado's answer to Why do young people hate living in the suburbs?.
-
“People say "most Americans live in car-centric suburbs, therefore most want that" like there isn't a scarcity of affordable housing in walkable areas.
A mcmansion isn't cheaper to build than a rowhouse in a walkable town or city (unless the particular city in question has insane fees) but it's cheaper to buy because of the difference in demand.
Americans actually love walkability. Even in the most rural areas, people go to walkable towns for day trips, dates, events, etc. The idea that many people want to live somewhere like that isn't far-fetched. It's just few can afford it.
People act like city planning materializes the will of the people when very few people affect it. It's not like city holds a contest of who can draw the coolest planned city and then the town votes and the winner gets built.
Not to mention zoning laws in a lot of the country make it impossible to build walkable towns or cities because of the minimum lot size requirements per residence.“
-
“Long vent incoming...
My town, Rock Hill, SC, has less than 100,000 people but takes up literally half of the county. The closest grocery store is something like 6-7 miles away and you have to cross a major highway, and my school is 3 miles away on country backroads that don't have sidewalks and instead have ditches. Nice!
What sucks is that, if I want to continue living where I live and have access to literally anything, I gotta buy a car. No wonder the south has the Highest obesity rate in the nation and Incredibly bad traffic due to ridiculous car dependency and the fact that the population is shooting up and all these new people moving in need to buy a car.
The sprawl of my town is absurd. Actually absurd. The bad thing is that NOBODY CARES TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!! I have been trapped at home since I was young, unable to go anywhere or do anything on my own. This is the same for many many many people across the United States. This is turning kids into sheltered, awkward, isolated, obese weirdos who can't do anything on their own because they were never able to do anything on their own until they were 16, AKA when it was too late.
I'm infuriated at this. I hope sometime soon enough people get FED UP with this car-centric development and cities change for the better. I've seen more videos like this recently and this is good news. Cars are ruining our climate, our environment, our children, our health, our wallets, and our towns.”
- YouTube user @kzt396, Why Strip Malls are Trash for Walkability.
-
“Car bans are stupid but walkable cities are one of the few reddit leftist positions worth considering. Freedom is having the right to choose, I don't want to be forced to drive every day in traffic since I hate that shit and would rather walk or bike. Driving is only fun when you don't live in a populated area.”
-
“Yah I agree. Cities SHOULD improve their public transport as it would incentivize plenty of people to use it when they really don't need to use a car. But I don't think we should entirely restrict the freedom of owning a car Instead just make public transport extremely convenient and cheap. I don't even like driving but I can deal with walking everywhere because where I live. I can totally understand why someone would need a car in places, especially in most of the US.“
- YouTube user @thespacedisland5746.
-
“These redditors are right, and I'm coming from a right-wing viewpoint. North American cities are such comically terrible shitholes, as well as suburban sprawl zones, that it's indefensible. For this reason redditors living in N.A. really have no choice but to complain about their problems. Inefficient, polluted, degenerate, deadly and over-expensive. Learning about how terrible N.A infrastructure is has led me to see it everywhere. Seeing people have to drive 5 minutes to get to a fast food slop joint 2 blocks away, seeing people in a nearby "stroad" risk have to patiently wait minutes for traffic to be completely gone so they can pull out of their driveway into a 60mph stroad and not instantly die. And dear god the degeneracy of both human and vehicular obesity. Seeing those obese SUVs wheeze down highways like the car version of old Nicocado Avocado. Gross.“
-
“I live in Houston, I'm 17, in a single parent household. My mom is too blind to drive, so my entire life my family has never had a car. We still don't. I ended up missing out on a lot of experiences going on, and I hardly ever got the chance to go to places. Often times when my family needs to go grocery shopping, we go walking to the Walmart nearby. That one grocery trip takes up the whole day. Sometimes when were finished shopping, it's already dark out, and we ask our relatives if they can give us a ride home, even though they live 30 minutes away. We do that because it's just not safe to walk back in the dark for 30 minutes. There's no street lamps, and we live in an unsafe neighborhood. There used to be a bus going to the Walmart, which helped us a lot, but they shut it down.
I've asked my aunts and uncles to teach me how to drive but its always "you live far away and I'm too busy" It feels at times as if I'm stuck. I can't learn how to drive without a car. And we're not financially stable enough to even afford a car. It's hard for me to get a job and help out because, well, how am I supposed to go to work. I ask for rides, and lately we've been relying a lot on ubers just to live. It gets expensive, making it even harder to save up for a car. My mom takes the Metro in the morning to work, and an uber at night. I've been looking for cars online, but everything good is way out of our budget. And if we get one too cheap then it'll be too expensive to keep up with it. I've had a friend trying to teach me how to drive, but she lives almost an hour away so we've only been doing lessons once a week. And I still need to go to a driving school and get my permit. Its hard living here without a car. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm trapped into a small bubble and being able to leave it is an expensive luxury we cant always afford. When I was younger I thought I would have fixed our situation, but I was so wrong.”
-
I am a disabled individual. I literally cannot operate a motor vehicle in a legal capacity. I cannot live in most US cities because of the lack of public transport and inability to walk places. I WANT THIS TO CHANGE. I am visually impaired, but I want this to change not only for me, but others like me whose disability would not hinder their life nearly as much if the cities they lived in were walkable cities. This would also benefit the mental and physical health of future generations, granting younger people the opportunity to see more of their home town in a safer environment.
- @CollinTheBlind/Collin Henderson.
-
My own story:
I watched the TV show Curious George as a child. The episodes took place showing the monkey Curious George either walking around the City & experiencing life in the City or walking around a Rural Area (Country). I lived in sprawled, car-dependent suburban monstrosity called Gwinnett County, where I could not relate to the City episodes because we did not live in a real City, but the area was too built-up with high-speed traffic, stroads, & neighborhood designs forcing people to walk circuitous routes to get anywhere to be a rural area, so I could not relate to the Country episodes either. Similarly, I could not relate to the show Arthur, where the characters are able to walk or bike to friend’s houses.
Before approximately 2008 or 2009, my mother ran a store in some strip mall. After the Great Recession, my mother had to shut down her store due to its lack of profit, & become employed instead of being an entrepreneur. My father was (& still is) a Policeman, & routinely worked night-shifts during the late 2000’s until approximately 2013 or 2014, so he had to sleep during most of the day during those years.
Me & my sister were dependent on our parents to go anywhere & experience things, & thus our lives were highly compartmentalized between home, school, & our grandmother’s house. I was in Cub Scouts for several years, & my sister was into ballet for several years, then Girl Scouts, both of us eventually dropping out of said activities. We mostly spent our free-time on the web, only occasionally going out.
I’m sure many other Zoomers could relate to our lives.
Even worse, our maternal grandparents spent most of their lives in their house, watching television, browsing the internet (grandfather did when he was alive) or gardening.
Had me & my sister grown up in a walkable city, we could’ve gotten more experiences on our own, & said experiences would’ve been more organic & spontaneous & not artificial.