I got to thinking about this. I don't want a pool in my backyard. I want at-cost access to a pool I know will be kept clean within a block of my house. I don't really care about my lawn...i just...
I'd need to smack everyone wanting the suburban dream, but convincing everyone that owning a quarter acre of stupid ugly grass is not Freedom™
I got to thinking about this. I don't want a pool in my backyard. I want at-cost access to a pool I know will be kept clean within a block of my house. I don't really care about my lawn...i just want a space for the kids to play, again, within a block of my house. I want a plot of land that I can garden in, and a space for tools and hobby projects.
The only thing I really want a personal outdoor space for is BBQ...and I don't need a full 1/4 acre for that.
It is very nice having a single-family home that you have pretty much free access to do what you want to it. If I wanna take a hammer to this drywall inside my office so I can run a new outlet and Ethernet conduit...I don't need to go to a homeowner's association and get 100 signatures and a construction permit, which I could see needing in a denser housing situation.
It would be nice to break from the deeply engrained rural/suburban/urban patterns we have thus far in the USA and incorporate the best of each thing. More medium-large villages with a good bit of residential/commercial/industrial density toward the middle, some medium-density spaces surrounding, then a good several hundred acres of undeveloped commons surrounding.
Not exactly no. I don't exactly want all these spaces tied directly to the residence. It makes the opportunity cost of moving too high. Having them separated from private residences and more of a...
Not exactly no. I don't exactly want all these spaces tied directly to the residence. It makes the opportunity cost of moving too high. Having them separated from private residences and more of a public service. I just want them close by. Like a community center, library, and open space parks no more than a 15 min walk away. Right now these things often get relegated to outskirts...in part cause everyone is getting 1/4 acres of grass surrounding their mcmansions.
Additionally, shared walls, especially ceilings/floors, are kinda terrible. I think well-designed duplexes/row-homes with ample insulation between could be a options...but in the USA these tend to be either in disrepair in the cities or plunked down in cul-de-sacs in suburbia, defeating the purpose.
Denser housing necessarily means more logistics for renovations and changes. I live in a single floor rancher, and it's trivially easy to avoid pitfalls like making the building structurally unsound when yanking or adding walls. Having easy access to all sides means self-servicing electrical, plumbing, and HVAC is also very easy.
And while denser housing is a good thing in many ways, it necessitates having yet another layer of governance in order to keep things running smoothly. And these HOA/Condo associations are currently poorly regulated from above and can become nightmares to live in.
Striking a good balance between autonomy and efficiency/walk-ability is important, because its that lack of autonomy in dense settings that really makes the city unappealing to many.
The shared walls/ceilings etc. are my greatest concern, too. I've lived in apartments where the walls were essentially transparent to sound, to the point where I used to think my neighbour's...
The shared walls/ceilings etc. are my greatest concern, too. I've lived in apartments where the walls were essentially transparent to sound, to the point where I used to think my neighbour's children were running up MY stairs to the second level of the duplex.
I've lived next to neighbours who apparently wanted to hang a copy of every print and religious icon in existence (I visited once because they were my landlord's parents, and it almost looked like some sort of ironic take on "wall decoration". It was a mosaic of carvings/paintings/icons/photos/prints absolutely covering a wall, so easily 3x6 metres. Quite incredible) and drilled for days to put in the hanging hardware.
A colleague at work has just seen her ceiling fall in from work on a balcony above her, and is now caught between her own landlady, the neigbours, and the HOA, who all disclaim responsibility. Meanwhile, it could have seriously injured her and she's down a room. So yes, dense housing, but really, not being in high-rise dense blocks has some serious advantages.
But without being high-rise multi-dwelling buildings, I can't see how to achieve large-scale walkable living areas, houses just have too high a footprint. It's a toughie.
To find walkable single-family designs, all we need to do is look to the past, before 1930 when cars started becoming dominant design features. Here is a typical 4BR built circa 1910. Here is a...
To find walkable single-family designs, all we need to do is look to the past, before 1930 when cars started becoming dominant design features. Here is a typical 4BR built circa 1910. Here is a typical 4 BR suburban monstrosity built after 1990. I chose upstate NY arbitrarily, but these patterns are pretty much all over the Northeast.
One sits on 1/10th an acre, the other sits on 1/2 an acre. And that first house (using that as the example going forward) isn't even as good as it could be...If you took a second like it, and built it directly sharing 1 external wall, you could have them both sharing more like a 1/7th an acre instead of 1/5th that they do now. Ideally with an entire block of housing communally sharing that space, rather than it being 'walled off' for each house. I think that's part of the problem, is that there is this assumption that buying a house includes the land around it...when the focus should be on maximizing communal land and having everybody take a "use what you need" approach in a neighborly way.
Even without that hyper-optimization of land space, the suburban town has a population density of about 1320/sqmi, while the city has a density of about 5900/sqmi. Rochester isn't the most walkable town there ever was...but I'd put it miles ahead of the average suburban wasteland. It's about half the population density of NYC.
Converting cul-de-sac suburbia to the more traditional housing blocks will improve walk-ability tenfold, especially if said housing isn't built to be car-centric with a garage and driveway for every home.
You could build immensely walkable towns at a population density of 4000 or better, while still giving everyone some solid personal space. It however, will require some solid planning of public facilities like schools, groceries, community centers, libraries, and transport. Half of the problems of walkability boil down to a lack of more than 2 of those within walking distance.
So you don't want shared walls... don't want condos... but you want housing dense enough to facilitate having a pool among other amenties every couple blocks. You can't have that unless you're...
So you don't want shared walls... don't want condos... but you want housing dense enough to facilitate having a pool among other amenties every couple blocks.
You can't have that unless you're willing to pay for it and the kind of low density housing you're suggesting would mean insane taxes to pay for that.
Even in places with very dense housing you don't see that level of services and usually that dense housing exists because of loose zoning that means it is rare to see large properties that can be developed in such ways, most places even in say Tokyo (a world class, well designed, dense city) aren't going to be within 15 mins of a park but this is compensated for with incredibly accessible transit.
Here's a sibling reply if you replied from notification, and see my subsequent response. It shows some examples. Considering the difference between typical USA suburbia (houses on 1/4 acre or...
Here's a sibling reply if you replied from notification, and see my subsequent response. It shows some examples.
Considering the difference between typical USA suburbia (houses on 1/4 acre or more) and a proper suburban town (with block-shaped lots and 1/10th an acre or less per property), it's completely viable to build solidly walkable towns that aren't megadense cities.
The lack of amenities in these areas often boil down to ownership problems and relying on the private sector to provide public services.
As for my requirements...yea they're my 'ideal house' list. I specifically seek out housing that meets those things, and compromise to the best of my budget. A pool every block might not be feasible....but then in suburbia almost every cul de sac has at least 2-3 pools....converting that cul de sac into a proper block would certainly leave room for one larger one that could meet the needs of the whole block.
In fact, those amenities I listed, I do have most within a 15 min walk. And my town is not particularily dense (< 3000), and I hardly have the most ideal location.
I do understand that we need medium-to-high density housing and to break the suburban mindset for the good of humanity and the environment. I am a huge transit advocate, I hate the modern...
I do understand that we need medium-to-high density housing and to break the suburban mindset for the good of humanity and the environment. I am a huge transit advocate, I hate the modern car-centric stroad-loving design of American cities. But I have lived in housing attached to other housing my entire adult life, and I want a place that is mine. Detached from others, private, that I can do whatever I like with. Where I can be noisy, make my own decisions for the walls and the fittings, and so forth. I don’t need a lawn, but I am not a city person and I don’t want to become one. I live in a townhouse currently and I dislike but tolerate it. Having to live in an apartment building would make me absolutely miserable.
When discussions of population sustainability come up it’s often suggested (not by you) that such concerns are xenophobic in nature - there is more than enough space and infrastructure for all of us if we live densely, and after all, humans are social creatures, so this is actually ideal, and apartments combined with shared spaces can provide for all our needs. That there are many people who wouldn’t want to live like this is sort of hand-waved at best and derided at worst.
It sounds like you really just want to live somewhere you can forget you even have neighbors. Strictly speaking, buildings with good insulation block enough noise to cover the first issue. At the...
It sounds like you really just want to live somewhere you can forget you even have neighbors. Strictly speaking, buildings with good insulation block enough noise to cover the first issue. At the present moment, I live in a surprisingly quiet apartment for this part of town, which is quite busy. No voices at all, and only light street noise mostly from keeping the windows open. I can still hear occasional creaky floorboards, but it's not like you can't hear your family walking around in a SFH.
But pretty much no landlord ever will let you rip up the floor or walls at your discretion. If you want total control over your surroundings, owning a condominium is an alternative to renting in an apartment; in a condo, even if it's not detached, you tend to have a lot more leeway. You own it. The HOA might have implementation rules, but then again, so would an HOA for a SFH (or the local municipality). I have a few friends with condos who found it to be the correct balance for them.
I grew up in a very small town. I would call it more suburban than rural, but little. It was nice not to share a wall with anyone, but the lawnmowers, leafblowers, and traffic kind of defeated the purpose. (Out in the country, it's the tractors instead... farms are loud.) We didn't even have neighbors across the road and it still managed to be noisy. If you want to live somewhere totally quiet, your best option is alone in a mountain valley. Personally I have never found that to be realistic for my lifestyle. :/
It's environmentally and economically unsustainable for every person to live in fully detached housing, but there's a difference between SFHs existing and being dominant. To be honest, the current prevalence of SFH suburbs is beyond a sustainable threshold. From a collective policy perspective, especially considering we are in a decade-long housing crisis, it makes sense for society to prioritize the safest and most efficient form of housing (which are apartments built to modern standards). It likewise makes sense to socially recognize the environmental and financial strain that prioritizing detached SFH development places on our resource-limited world and institutions.
However, as an individual who just wants to live a good life, none of that really matters if the upstairs neighbors won't let you sleep. My opinion with this sort of thing, as someone who is fond of both sustainable living and getting my eight hours, is to explicitly and openly support policies and politicians who want to give developers options about which type of housing to build (i.e. reasonably unrestrictive zoning codes) and allow individuals to make their own decisions about what to choose.
Do you know if this is true? Population growth is slowing, and some countries have substantial uninhabited land. Over 40% of the USA is uninhabited. There are areas of the USA where you'd need to...
I do understand that we need medium-to-high density housing and to break the suburban mindset for the good of humanity and the environment.
Do you know if this is true? Population growth is slowing, and some countries have substantial uninhabited land. Over 40% of the USA is uninhabited. There are areas of the USA where you'd need to drive for hours before you'd run into another person. Something like ~70% of Spain doesn't have people living in it.
With cleaner/renewable energy generation and better landscaping practices I don't think suburban or rural lifestyles actually have to be damaging to the environment.
Well, this is kind of true, but I think of the problem this way: if we increase renewables and decrease energy use, we can transition to clean energy even faster. Denser housing helps a lot with...
Well, this is kind of true, but I think of the problem this way: if we increase renewables and decrease energy use, we can transition to clean energy even faster. Denser housing helps a lot with this. This doesn't mean everyone needs to live in a city, just substituting US-style suburbs with european style suburb is a huge improvement.
... which is the default here in (western) Europe.
I still have a dream of creating new cities - planned cities - with medium to high density, to support mixed use, so public transportation works well and people can walk easily to many shops and restaurants.
... which is the default here in (western) Europe.
This is a lot better in Europe (which is why I moved here!) but European cities do still frequently have designs that are too car-centric. It's nothing compared to the US, but there's plenty of...
This is a lot better in Europe (which is why I moved here!) but European cities do still frequently have designs that are too car-centric. It's nothing compared to the US, but there's plenty of room for improvement.
As an example, I live in a relatively central location in Berlin (within the Ringbahn, for those familiar with the city) and there are four giant 6+ lane roads within walking distance of my apartment (and I'm not in great shape, so walking distance isn't even that far), and that's not even including the A100 gouging its way through the city. That plus the amount of area cluttered by street parking can make some areas of the city feel straight-up oppressive. Look at this street view image of Bundesstraße/Kaiserdamm, taken in October 2022 -- I can attest that it always looks like this and it makes me miserable when I have to walk around there.
Now, I can walk places and the public transport system is really good, so it's still leaps and bounds better than North American cities for sure. But god there's still so much that needs done better and I needed the chance to rant.
Hi fellow Berliner :) Yes, there's a lot which needs to be improved here. But the number of bicycle paths is (was :( ) slowly improving, the subway works (usually) (and with the 49 ticket I feel...
Hi fellow Berliner :)
Yes, there's a lot which needs to be improved here. But the number of bicycle paths is (was :( ) slowly improving, the subway works (usually) (and with the 49 ticket I feel it's fairly priced). I don't understand why you would want the stress and time-sink of owning a car here. Now if I wouldn't have to fight with idiotic car drivers at least once a week...
(Bundesstrasse is particularly bad, for which there is absolutely no excuse in 2023)
Oh yeah I have no idea why anyone would want to own a car here, the public transport is so good that it's super easy to get around (and driving in Berlin would suck so bad). I just needed a chance...
Oh yeah I have no idea why anyone would want to own a car here, the public transport is so good that it's super easy to get around (and driving in Berlin would suck so bad). I just needed a chance to vent about how far from perfect everything is lol
Oh I know that feeling. And the new politics are depressing and so backwards. Give me a proper low/no-car city in western Europe and I'll move there tomo :)
Oh I know that feeling. And the new politics are depressing and so backwards.
Give me a proper low/no-car city in western Europe and I'll move there tomo :)
Everyone gets hype about Amsterdam but from my research their trans healthcare is worse than here (and it's already pretty sub-optimal here!) and since both my partner and I are trans that makes...
Everyone gets hype about Amsterdam but from my research their trans healthcare is worse than here (and it's already pretty sub-optimal here!) and since both my partner and I are trans that makes it a lot less tenable. I think properly low/no-car plus good trans healthcare is probably a pretty high bar. But I'm eligible for citizenship here soon under the new law so at least I might be able to vote out the CDU next time.
I had a feeling ir was Zermatt after I saw the thumbnail and headline yesterday, but I didn't know if any other place was also doing this, especially by now since I was there in 2004 and it was...
I had a feeling ir was Zermatt after I saw the thumbnail and headline yesterday, but I didn't know if any other place was also doing this, especially by now since I was there in 2004 and it was like this. Kinda cool
Mackinac Island in Michigan is a car free…island…with the notable exceptions like emergency vehicles and presidential motorcades. It’s very touristy but there are people who live on the island....
Mackinac Island in Michigan is a car free…island…with the notable exceptions like emergency vehicles and presidential motorcades. It’s very touristy but there are people who live on the island. The wild part is there are people who live there over the winter.
I see references to communities needing to be formed around high density, like condos and no back yards. Mackinac makes me think it’s possible to have low density villages without cars. I think the critical part is having mixed zoning, but also community owned businesses that don’t operate on aggressive profit-driven metrics.
Mackinac would be far from ideal. It’s an island, I don’t want to know how much milk costs in February.
I absolutely love the upper peninsula, so I've heard of Mackinac Island, but I've never been there, because I usually visit the west side of the UP. I had no idea it was car-free, and now I'm...
I absolutely love the upper peninsula, so I've heard of Mackinac Island, but I've never been there, because I usually visit the west side of the UP.
I had no idea it was car-free, and now I'm excited to visit! That's interesting, especially for such a rural area in the Midwest where we all consider cars to be a requirement to get around. It's funny to me that the Mackinac Bridge is somewhat well-known in the Midwest, since it led me to believe that the bridge must have been for the purpose of driving cars across it, but apparently that's not the case.
I've also learned the correct pronunciation of Mackinac now that your comment prompted me to Google more information about it. (It's "Mack-in-ah," for anyone else who's curious.)
Mackinac Island is a little magical because it’s quite different from other places I’ve been. Door County Wisconsin is also something worth visiting if you’re into the small town thing that...
Mackinac Island is a little magical because it’s quite different from other places I’ve been. Door County Wisconsin is also something worth visiting if you’re into the small town thing that Mackinac also brings.
If you do visit the island, visit the island. Mackinac city might save you money on your stay and buying the local fudge but you’re not really embracing what the island offers staying on the mainland.
The bridge is for cars, as its purpose is linking the lower and upper peninsula. Labor day is the only day where you can walk it, as it shuts down for the morning for the annual bridge walk. As...
The bridge is for cars, as its purpose is linking the lower and upper peninsula. Labor day is the only day where you can walk it, as it shuts down for the morning for the annual bridge walk. As for the island, you get to it by ferry or airplane.
Hamilton Island in Queensland is also car free. Everyone uses golf buggies for getting around the island, but they do have a couple of minibuses I think, and I assume emergency vehicles. Similarly...
Hamilton Island in Queensland is also car free. Everyone uses golf buggies for getting around the island, but they do have a couple of minibuses I think, and I assume emergency vehicles. Similarly it’s very touristy but workers live there too.
This isn’t just any Swiss town though. It’s a resort town to see the Matterhorn. Visitors outnumber the local population several times over. Literally Disneyland with golf carts.
This isn’t just any Swiss town though. It’s a resort town to see the Matterhorn. Visitors outnumber the local population several times over. Literally Disneyland with golf carts.
Yeah, from a quick google, Zermatt has a permanent population less than 6000, and clocks in at about 2.2 million nights booked at hotels per year. That averages out to also just about 6000/day....
Yeah, from a quick google, Zermatt has a permanent population less than 6000, and clocks in at about 2.2 million nights booked at hotels per year. That averages out to also just about 6000/day. Add to that all the wintersport or hiking daytrips and it's reasonable to assume locals are going to be the minority on most days.
Tom talked about how amazingly quiet the town gets at night but that's really more to do with the small population than the lack of cars. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, people stop driving...
Tom talked about how amazingly quiet the town gets at night but that's really more to do with the small population than the lack of cars. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, people stop driving at night because there's nowhere to go. I also recently visited San Juan island in Washington and it was similarly dead quiet at night, but again all of the businesses are closed by 9pm (most by 5pm).
It's in the video (pretty short – worth watching) but they build the cars themselves. A local business produces them. They're hand-built, so they're expensive, but apparently they last 30-50 years...
It's in the video (pretty short – worth watching) but they build the cars themselves. A local business produces them. They're hand-built, so they're expensive, but apparently they last 30-50 years (not a typo).
They are small, low speed, electric vehicles. It's actually not that hard to imagine the cars having a very long service life. The batteries probably need replacing every decade, but the chassis...
They are small, low speed, electric vehicles. It's actually not that hard to imagine the cars having a very long service life. The batteries probably need replacing every decade, but the chassis is simply not going to see a lot of wear with that light of a duty. We can see similarly long lifespans for Sunday cars taken care of by attentive owners.
I'm not entirely sure what you're implying but this is also out of the norm for Europe. There are certain city centres that have banned cars but that doesn't come close to what you see in the video.
I'm not entirely sure what you're implying but this is also out of the norm for Europe.
There are certain city centres that have banned cars but that doesn't come close to what you see in the video.
@BeanBurrito has a point (if curtly made). The USA has become so car-centric that outside a few large cities that haven't gutted their public transport, banning cars is less likely than the second...
@BeanBurrito has a point (if curtly made). The USA has become so car-centric that outside a few large cities that haven't gutted their public transport, banning cars is less likely than the second coming of Christ.
I got to thinking about this. I don't want a pool in my backyard. I want at-cost access to a pool I know will be kept clean within a block of my house. I don't really care about my lawn...i just want a space for the kids to play, again, within a block of my house. I want a plot of land that I can garden in, and a space for tools and hobby projects.
The only thing I really want a personal outdoor space for is BBQ...and I don't need a full 1/4 acre for that.
It is very nice having a single-family home that you have pretty much free access to do what you want to it. If I wanna take a hammer to this drywall inside my office so I can run a new outlet and Ethernet conduit...I don't need to go to a homeowner's association and get 100 signatures and a construction permit, which I could see needing in a denser housing situation.
It would be nice to break from the deeply engrained rural/suburban/urban patterns we have thus far in the USA and incorporate the best of each thing. More medium-large villages with a good bit of residential/commercial/industrial density toward the middle, some medium-density spaces surrounding, then a good several hundred acres of undeveloped commons surrounding.
I like having a hottub as well, but that could be in a small backyard as well.
So... a condo?
Not exactly no. I don't exactly want all these spaces tied directly to the residence. It makes the opportunity cost of moving too high. Having them separated from private residences and more of a public service. I just want them close by. Like a community center, library, and open space parks no more than a 15 min walk away. Right now these things often get relegated to outskirts...in part cause everyone is getting 1/4 acres of grass surrounding their mcmansions.
Additionally, shared walls, especially ceilings/floors, are kinda terrible. I think well-designed duplexes/row-homes with ample insulation between could be a options...but in the USA these tend to be either in disrepair in the cities or plunked down in cul-de-sacs in suburbia, defeating the purpose.
Denser housing necessarily means more logistics for renovations and changes. I live in a single floor rancher, and it's trivially easy to avoid pitfalls like making the building structurally unsound when yanking or adding walls. Having easy access to all sides means self-servicing electrical, plumbing, and HVAC is also very easy.
And while denser housing is a good thing in many ways, it necessitates having yet another layer of governance in order to keep things running smoothly. And these HOA/Condo associations are currently poorly regulated from above and can become nightmares to live in.
Striking a good balance between autonomy and efficiency/walk-ability is important, because its that lack of autonomy in dense settings that really makes the city unappealing to many.
The shared walls/ceilings etc. are my greatest concern, too. I've lived in apartments where the walls were essentially transparent to sound, to the point where I used to think my neighbour's children were running up MY stairs to the second level of the duplex.
I've lived next to neighbours who apparently wanted to hang a copy of every print and religious icon in existence (I visited once because they were my landlord's parents, and it almost looked like some sort of ironic take on "wall decoration". It was a mosaic of carvings/paintings/icons/photos/prints absolutely covering a wall, so easily 3x6 metres. Quite incredible) and drilled for days to put in the hanging hardware.
A colleague at work has just seen her ceiling fall in from work on a balcony above her, and is now caught between her own landlady, the neigbours, and the HOA, who all disclaim responsibility. Meanwhile, it could have seriously injured her and she's down a room. So yes, dense housing, but really, not being in high-rise dense blocks has some serious advantages.
But without being high-rise multi-dwelling buildings, I can't see how to achieve large-scale walkable living areas, houses just have too high a footprint. It's a toughie.
To find walkable single-family designs, all we need to do is look to the past, before 1930 when cars started becoming dominant design features. Here is a typical 4BR built circa 1910. Here is a typical 4 BR suburban monstrosity built after 1990. I chose upstate NY arbitrarily, but these patterns are pretty much all over the Northeast.
One sits on 1/10th an acre, the other sits on 1/2 an acre. And that first house (using that as the example going forward) isn't even as good as it could be...If you took a second like it, and built it directly sharing 1 external wall, you could have them both sharing more like a 1/7th an acre instead of 1/5th that they do now. Ideally with an entire block of housing communally sharing that space, rather than it being 'walled off' for each house. I think that's part of the problem, is that there is this assumption that buying a house includes the land around it...when the focus should be on maximizing communal land and having everybody take a "use what you need" approach in a neighborly way.
Even without that hyper-optimization of land space, the suburban town has a population density of about 1320/sqmi, while the city has a density of about 5900/sqmi. Rochester isn't the most walkable town there ever was...but I'd put it miles ahead of the average suburban wasteland. It's about half the population density of NYC.
Converting cul-de-sac suburbia to the more traditional housing blocks will improve walk-ability tenfold, especially if said housing isn't built to be car-centric with a garage and driveway for every home.
You could build immensely walkable towns at a population density of 4000 or better, while still giving everyone some solid personal space. It however, will require some solid planning of public facilities like schools, groceries, community centers, libraries, and transport. Half of the problems of walkability boil down to a lack of more than 2 of those within walking distance.
So you don't want shared walls... don't want condos... but you want housing dense enough to facilitate having a pool among other amenties every couple blocks.
You can't have that unless you're willing to pay for it and the kind of low density housing you're suggesting would mean insane taxes to pay for that.
Even in places with very dense housing you don't see that level of services and usually that dense housing exists because of loose zoning that means it is rare to see large properties that can be developed in such ways, most places even in say Tokyo (a world class, well designed, dense city) aren't going to be within 15 mins of a park but this is compensated for with incredibly accessible transit.
Here's a sibling reply if you replied from notification, and see my subsequent response. It shows some examples.
Considering the difference between typical USA suburbia (houses on 1/4 acre or more) and a proper suburban town (with block-shaped lots and 1/10th an acre or less per property), it's completely viable to build solidly walkable towns that aren't megadense cities.
The lack of amenities in these areas often boil down to ownership problems and relying on the private sector to provide public services.
As for my requirements...yea they're my 'ideal house' list. I specifically seek out housing that meets those things, and compromise to the best of my budget. A pool every block might not be feasible....but then in suburbia almost every cul de sac has at least 2-3 pools....converting that cul de sac into a proper block would certainly leave room for one larger one that could meet the needs of the whole block.
In fact, those amenities I listed, I do have most within a 15 min walk. And my town is not particularily dense (< 3000), and I hardly have the most ideal location.
I do understand that we need medium-to-high density housing and to break the suburban mindset for the good of humanity and the environment. I am a huge transit advocate, I hate the modern car-centric stroad-loving design of American cities. But I have lived in housing attached to other housing my entire adult life, and I want a place that is mine. Detached from others, private, that I can do whatever I like with. Where I can be noisy, make my own decisions for the walls and the fittings, and so forth. I don’t need a lawn, but I am not a city person and I don’t want to become one. I live in a townhouse currently and I dislike but tolerate it. Having to live in an apartment building would make me absolutely miserable.
When discussions of population sustainability come up it’s often suggested (not by you) that such concerns are xenophobic in nature - there is more than enough space and infrastructure for all of us if we live densely, and after all, humans are social creatures, so this is actually ideal, and apartments combined with shared spaces can provide for all our needs. That there are many people who wouldn’t want to live like this is sort of hand-waved at best and derided at worst.
It sounds like you really just want to live somewhere you can forget you even have neighbors. Strictly speaking, buildings with good insulation block enough noise to cover the first issue. At the present moment, I live in a surprisingly quiet apartment for this part of town, which is quite busy. No voices at all, and only light street noise mostly from keeping the windows open. I can still hear occasional creaky floorboards, but it's not like you can't hear your family walking around in a SFH.
But pretty much no landlord ever will let you rip up the floor or walls at your discretion. If you want total control over your surroundings, owning a condominium is an alternative to renting in an apartment; in a condo, even if it's not detached, you tend to have a lot more leeway. You own it. The HOA might have implementation rules, but then again, so would an HOA for a SFH (or the local municipality). I have a few friends with condos who found it to be the correct balance for them.
I grew up in a very small town. I would call it more suburban than rural, but little. It was nice not to share a wall with anyone, but the lawnmowers, leafblowers, and traffic kind of defeated the purpose. (Out in the country, it's the tractors instead... farms are loud.) We didn't even have neighbors across the road and it still managed to be noisy. If you want to live somewhere totally quiet, your best option is alone in a mountain valley. Personally I have never found that to be realistic for my lifestyle. :/
It's environmentally and economically unsustainable for every person to live in fully detached housing, but there's a difference between SFHs existing and being dominant. To be honest, the current prevalence of SFH suburbs is beyond a sustainable threshold. From a collective policy perspective, especially considering we are in a decade-long housing crisis, it makes sense for society to prioritize the safest and most efficient form of housing (which are apartments built to modern standards). It likewise makes sense to socially recognize the environmental and financial strain that prioritizing detached SFH development places on our resource-limited world and institutions.
However, as an individual who just wants to live a good life, none of that really matters if the upstairs neighbors won't let you sleep. My opinion with this sort of thing, as someone who is fond of both sustainable living and getting my eight hours, is to explicitly and openly support policies and politicians who want to give developers options about which type of housing to build (i.e. reasonably unrestrictive zoning codes) and allow individuals to make their own decisions about what to choose.
Do you know if this is true? Population growth is slowing, and some countries have substantial uninhabited land. Over 40% of the USA is uninhabited. There are areas of the USA where you'd need to drive for hours before you'd run into another person. Something like ~70% of Spain doesn't have people living in it.
With cleaner/renewable energy generation and better landscaping practices I don't think suburban or rural lifestyles actually have to be damaging to the environment.
Well, this is kind of true, but I think of the problem this way: if we increase renewables and decrease energy use, we can transition to clean energy even faster. Denser housing helps a lot with this. This doesn't mean everyone needs to live in a city, just substituting US-style suburbs with european style suburb is a huge improvement.
... which is the default here in (western) Europe.
This is a lot better in Europe (which is why I moved here!) but European cities do still frequently have designs that are too car-centric. It's nothing compared to the US, but there's plenty of room for improvement.
As an example, I live in a relatively central location in Berlin (within the Ringbahn, for those familiar with the city) and there are four giant 6+ lane roads within walking distance of my apartment (and I'm not in great shape, so walking distance isn't even that far), and that's not even including the A100 gouging its way through the city. That plus the amount of area cluttered by street parking can make some areas of the city feel straight-up oppressive. Look at this street view image of Bundesstraße/Kaiserdamm, taken in October 2022 -- I can attest that it always looks like this and it makes me miserable when I have to walk around there.
Now, I can walk places and the public transport system is really good, so it's still leaps and bounds better than North American cities for sure. But god there's still so much that needs done better and I needed the chance to rant.
Hi fellow Berliner :)
Yes, there's a lot which needs to be improved here. But the number of bicycle paths is (was :( ) slowly improving, the subway works (usually) (and with the 49 ticket I feel it's fairly priced). I don't understand why you would want the stress and time-sink of owning a car here. Now if I wouldn't have to fight with idiotic car drivers at least once a week...
(Bundesstrasse is particularly bad, for which there is absolutely no excuse in 2023)
Oh yeah I have no idea why anyone would want to own a car here, the public transport is so good that it's super easy to get around (and driving in Berlin would suck so bad). I just needed a chance to vent about how far from perfect everything is lol
Oh I know that feeling. And the new politics are depressing and so backwards.
Give me a proper low/no-car city in western Europe and I'll move there tomo :)
Everyone gets hype about Amsterdam but from my research their trans healthcare is worse than here (and it's already pretty sub-optimal here!) and since both my partner and I are trans that makes it a lot less tenable. I think properly low/no-car plus good trans healthcare is probably a pretty high bar. But I'm eligible for citizenship here soon under the new law so at least I might be able to vote out the CDU next time.
Congrats with your citizenship! And every vote for anything-but-outdated-CDU is great :)
From what I've heard, trans healthcare is indeed lagging behind in the Netherlanda which is incredably sad.
For all of you in the other threads discussing the dangers of big cars, I present to you Zermatt, Switzerland.
I had a feeling ir was Zermatt after I saw the thumbnail and headline yesterday, but I didn't know if any other place was also doing this, especially by now since I was there in 2004 and it was like this. Kinda cool
Mackinac Island in Michigan is a car free…island…with the notable exceptions like emergency vehicles and presidential motorcades. It’s very touristy but there are people who live on the island. The wild part is there are people who live there over the winter.
I see references to communities needing to be formed around high density, like condos and no back yards. Mackinac makes me think it’s possible to have low density villages without cars. I think the critical part is having mixed zoning, but also community owned businesses that don’t operate on aggressive profit-driven metrics.
Mackinac would be far from ideal. It’s an island, I don’t want to know how much milk costs in February.
I absolutely love the upper peninsula, so I've heard of Mackinac Island, but I've never been there, because I usually visit the west side of the UP.
I had no idea it was car-free, and now I'm excited to visit! That's interesting, especially for such a rural area in the Midwest where we all consider cars to be a requirement to get around. It's funny to me that the Mackinac Bridge is somewhat well-known in the Midwest, since it led me to believe that the bridge must have been for the purpose of driving cars across it, but apparently that's not the case.
I've also learned the correct pronunciation of Mackinac now that your comment prompted me to Google more information about it. (It's "Mack-in-ah," for anyone else who's curious.)
Mackinac Island is a little magical because it’s quite different from other places I’ve been. Door County Wisconsin is also something worth visiting if you’re into the small town thing that Mackinac also brings.
If you do visit the island, visit the island. Mackinac city might save you money on your stay and buying the local fudge but you’re not really embracing what the island offers staying on the mainland.
The bridge is for cars, as its purpose is linking the lower and upper peninsula. Labor day is the only day where you can walk it, as it shuts down for the morning for the annual bridge walk. As for the island, you get to it by ferry or airplane.
Hamilton Island in Queensland is also car free. Everyone uses golf buggies for getting around the island, but they do have a couple of minibuses I think, and I assume emergency vehicles. Similarly it’s very touristy but workers live there too.
This isn’t just any Swiss town though. It’s a resort town to see the Matterhorn. Visitors outnumber the local population several times over. Literally Disneyland with golf carts.
Yeah, from a quick google, Zermatt has a permanent population less than 6000, and clocks in at about 2.2 million nights booked at hotels per year. That averages out to also just about 6000/day. Add to that all the wintersport or hiking daytrips and it's reasonable to assume locals are going to be the minority on most days.
Tom talked about how amazingly quiet the town gets at night but that's really more to do with the small population than the lack of cars. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, people stop driving at night because there's nowhere to go. I also recently visited San Juan island in Washington and it was similarly dead quiet at night, but again all of the businesses are closed by 9pm (most by 5pm).
How do they build/repair staff? Did they ban only private cars?
I need to view the video...
It's in the video (pretty short – worth watching) but they build the cars themselves. A local business produces them. They're hand-built, so they're expensive, but apparently they last 30-50 years (not a typo).
They are small, low speed, electric vehicles. It's actually not that hard to imagine the cars having a very long service life. The batteries probably need replacing every decade, but the chassis is simply not going to see a lot of wear with that light of a duty. We can see similarly long lifespans for Sunday cars taken care of by attentive owners.
I'm not entirely sure what you're implying but this is also out of the norm for Europe.
There are certain city centres that have banned cars but that doesn't come close to what you see in the video.
@BeanBurrito has a point (if curtly made). The USA has become so car-centric that outside a few large cities that haven't gutted their public transport, banning cars is less likely than the second coming of Christ.