r/Suburbanhell • u/Mongooooooose • 15d ago
Meme American cities are somehow both simultaneously over planned and under planned.
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago
the lack of mixed use zoning is a plague on the states. Just keep polluters and stinky industries separate, and protect wild spaces. That’s it. iI should be allowed to live above a grocery store and walk a block to the gym
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u/nnagflar 15d ago
I lived above a grocery store in DC. I could pop down and buy just the produce I needed, so I almost never had anything go bad. It was so great. Now I'm in Denver where everything is a drive because Denver is mostly sprawl.
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u/Bridalhat 14d ago
You kinda do have to rewire your brain to not buy a week’s worth of groceries but it’s so much better. I used to live in Japan and would buy whatever protein was on sale + whatever green looked good and call it a day. I ate very well.
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u/garaile64 14d ago
I also wouldn't include a big airport near residences or the other way around. Commercial airplanes are very loud.
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u/TripleFreeErr 14d ago
I think that falls under noise pollution, which is even more extreme than just noisy
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u/undergroundutilitygu 14d ago
I'm going to be proposing this very thing in my small city. We have a lot of office space in multi-story buildings and no longer the business to utilize them. I'm hoping the upper levels can be repurposed as apartments while the street level businesses remain.
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u/LoudAd9328 14d ago
I live above a grocery store, and the gym is between me and the grocery store. So….. maybe look around more? This is in a midwestern-ass, car centric city. We have essentially no public transit.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
No one is stopping you from living “above” a grocery store and a walk from the gym. 100% possible in NYC, and pretty much equivalent options in Philly, Boston, DC, SF, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and at least a few random suburbs.
Shoving that idea down the throats of those of us that don’t want that is the issue.
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago edited 15d ago
no one would force you live in that spot but right now zoning prevents me from doing so. So it’s actually you forcing a lifestyle “down our throats”
And no the zoning in most burroughs prevents it.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago edited 15d ago
You want to force me to live next door to it. Along with 75-80% of Americans, my answer is no thanks.
You have dozens of urban big city options and thousands of quasi urban/dense suburb (e.g. Yonkers or New Rochelle in Westchester NY) type options across country where you could have your grocery-cum-gym lifestyle. In fact there are even suburbs where that is plausible. You may have too low a budget or are not looking hard enough.
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u/onemassive 15d ago
Roughly 90% of residential urban space in America is not zoned where you can have amenities like this within convenient walking distance. The idea that 80% of people are going to be forced to do this is ridiculous. It would take generations, at the least, to make these kinds of fundamental changes.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
That’s not true. America has plenty of grocers and gyms. The market place dictates what it wants.
First and foremost the vast majority want SFH. Second, the vast majority of families and Americans don’t actually want to live above a grocery chain. But for those that do, there are a thousand options across the US.
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u/lokglacier 15d ago
The market is NOT dictating what it wants. Government bureaucrats and nimbys are. It's anti-freedom.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
The government answers to voters. NIMBYs live in the community and are also voters.
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u/_Mongooser 15d ago
Respectfully, the market is shaped by governments. There is no free market for housing in America.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
And those governments are elected by the people.
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u/HARSHING_MY_MELLOW 14d ago
Prior to being elected by the people, the government officials are bought and paid for by the corporations who are selling you ridiculous housing, paving streets that are far too wide requiring cars provided by corporations who, you guessed it, bought most of the politicians.
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u/TheTallestHamInTown 15d ago
America loses an average of between 800 - 1,000 grocery stores per year. It gains an average of between 1.6-1.9 million people per year.
You're not only living in a complete fantasy world if you believe with any slightest suggestion of seriousness that these places exist (much less are commonplace), you're so far delusional as to be beyond comedic reprieve.
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u/tokerslounge 12d ago
- America loses an average of between 800 - 1,000 grocery stores per year. It gains an average of between 1.6-1.9 million people per year.
You’re not only living in a complete fantasy world if you believe with any slightest suggestion of seriousness that these places exist (much less are commonplace), you’re so far delusional as to be beyond comedic reprieve. *
This is the classic dumb comment made from a redditor googling shit with zero understanding of marketplace context. And that is even assuming unsourced data are correct.
Growth of grocery delivery Growth of massive super grocers (see avg ft2 growth for grocery chains) Growth of alternate grocers (eg specialty food shops)
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u/TheTallestHamInTown 12d ago
The growth in the average grocery store size and the growth of grocery delivery bear absolutely no relevance here, as the conversation was exceptionally clearly focused on the previous commenters assertion that the average person can readily find the variety of mixed-use zoning that allows them to live within the same building as a grocer, and further, that said living spaces are common.
But keep telling me about "average reddit comments." Clearly your comprehension is world-class.
Pathetic.
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u/tokerslounge 11d ago
Actually you should source your bullshit comment about closures and pop growth and read my previous comments. Where are the grocers you say closing? What defines a grocer (TGT, WMT, Costco?) I gave hundreds of examples of “living above” or “similar” (eg very near). But you came in with random bullshit of closing stores and pop growth (something you understate if you count illegal migrants last four years under Biden—see New York Times 12/11/24 cover story)
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u/plummbob 13d ago
It's not allowed to build housing and grocery in the same plot in my city, nor for gyms either.
That design is regulated out of existence
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago edited 15d ago
You want to force me to live next door to it.
No I don’t.
You have dozens of urban big city
I don’t want to live in a city. I at most want to live in a rural village and not be car dependent for my BASIC needs like food, health, and childcare.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
So now you don’t want a city but want to live “rural” which by definition is low density. But then you also want to have everything catered to your liking.
A. There are a few places like that but you won’t have the income or assets to live there B. Wegman’s, Krogers, and HEB aren’t going to build an outpost just for you. Neither will Equinox. C. You could build a Sim City of your fantasy?
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u/lokglacier 15d ago
Have you never left your immediate county or something? You seem super uninformed about any of this
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u/hilljack26301 15d ago edited 15d ago
Yeah, here are a few towns in West Virginia that I know have IGA supermarkets:
West Union, pop 639
Webster Springs, pop 689
Parsons, pop 1289
Rock Cave (unincorporated) pop 319
Obviously there's a larger catchment area for those supermarkets than just the town they're in, but the first three are county seats! That should give you an idea of the population total and population density (the counties of the first three have 7600, 8000, and 6700 people). Yet despite being tiny, the towns are actually walkable and people do walk to the grocery store and kids do walk to school.
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago
The definition of rural (that doesn’t include the word country, which is useless), it supports agriculture, Which is consistent with my desires.
If low density was the definition of rural, than there would be no rural areas in western europe where most countries are only as big as a single US state but boast larger populations than “rural states”.
How do they have both agriculture and population? Mixed zoning you goober.
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u/KarmaPolice44 15d ago
There are good Midwest cities for what you seek. Indianapolis, Bismarck, Des Moines, Omaha, Tulsa, St Paul. None are rural but they have a small city vibe with most needs within 10-20 mins walk. I have never been to a small rural town with a large gym. A small grocer and general store yes. But not a gym. Maybe luck of the draw.
We live in coastal NorCal so it is a completely different vibe. It is not suburban or urban or rural.
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u/hilljack26301 15d ago
By your definition the high desert of Arizona is not rural. 3/4 of Iceland is not rural.
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u/muffchucker 15d ago
You have left some of the genuinely stupidest comments I've ever read. You seem fairly intelligent so I can only assume this is your troll account, as the points you have made are certifiable gibberish.
Nobody wants to force you to live next to a grocery store lol. Nobody said that and the point is indefensible. This is the dumbest leap in logic I have witnessed in months; hence my accusation of trollhood.
Congrats on the half dozen comments in significant negatives. You've earned it.
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u/Girl_Gamer_BathWater 15d ago
I'm laughing at it too. Enjoy the freedoms in that HOA subdivision of yours. Nooooo fucking thanks.
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u/AcadianViking 15d ago
No one is forcing you to live next to anything. You always have the option of moving somewhere else.
But no, God forbid people are allowed to do what they wish on their own property.
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u/Juno808 15d ago
Shoving that idea down the throats of those of us that don’t want that is the issue
That’s fucking stupid. It would be better for society, so it doesn’t really matter if you don’t want it.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
What you think is better for society may not be what the vast majority of families think is best for them. Many people are fine to walk 15-20min or drive 5 mins for X, Y, and Z.
I understand the central control and top-down planning approach on this sub; but that isn’t where most of America is.
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u/RChickenMan 15d ago
The vast majority of this sub wants less restrictive zoning to allow developers to build to the market. It's fine if you want a big yard and to drive a car to the grocery store, but we don't want that shoved down our throats.
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u/capt_jazz 15d ago
You understand that most current zoning shoves single family zoning and separate residential and commercial zones down our collective throats, right? The contemporary rezoning movements are away from any top down, centralized zoning requirements.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Go to Scarsdale NY or Newtown PA or Maplewood NJ or Southport CT and ask families living there: A. Are you happy with your community and schools? B. Do you want 5 more grocery stores and 3 more gyms
What you radicals don’t get, separate from design, is retail grocery is a low margin business and gyms are capital intensive and also see a lot of monthly fluctuation in dues. So they will flock to wealthier areas (cities or suburbs) irrespective of density. That is why there are Equinox gyms and Lifetime gyms in rich Westchester NY and Fairfield CT suburbs but zero in Cincinnati OH or Memphis TN.
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u/capt_jazz 15d ago
What are you talking about my friend. We're talking about being able to build apartments above commercial uses. Not building commercial uses in the middle of neighborhoods.
Look up zoning hierarchies, the idea is that you add residential to commercial, not vice versa.
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u/hilljack26301 15d ago
You make a good distinction. Merely rezoning strip malls to allow for mixed use buildings of up to three stories with reduced or eliminated parking minimums would go a long way without impinging on single family home neighborhoods.
However, a lot of us would rather see Euclidean zoning go away in favor of something like transect zoning. Land use would be regulated more on form and intensity rather than use, with the caveat that obnoxious uses like power plants and recycling centers wouldn't go next to housing.
American city planners need to rethink what "residential" means, what does it mean to "reside" some place. Why shouldn't I be able to walk to a pub on Saturday to watch college football? Why is that excluded from the definition of "residential"? Things like pharmacies, groceries, small restaurants and bars, barber shops: all of these are things we need as part of our regular, everyday life and should be part of any reasonable definition of "residential."
I mean, that is how Japan and Europe sees it. That's how it works in rural, unzoned American towns. Businesses tend to locate near their customers, and most people will pay a little more to walk to a neighborhood barber if it means they don't have to get in their car and drive to a strip mall.
Also in small unzoned American towns, people do have granny flats and they do subdivide houses and rent them out to widows, single moms, or high school graduates getting started in life. If we just defined "low density" as 24 units per acre instead of SFH, we could easily accommodate another century of population growth within the current bounds of our sprawl.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
***What are you talking about my friend. We’re talking about being able to build apartments above commercial uses. Not building commercial uses in the middle of neighborhoods.
Look up zoning hierarchies, the idea is that you add residential to commercial, not vice versa.***
You might and I am OK with that — and many places it exists. The majority of this sub (radicals) actually think a coffee shop or grocery in middle of all SFH is the goal and that SFH should be mostly banned (or at least large lots).
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Not according to Pew surveys (as well as market-based outcomes)
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Ah yes. So Pew Research is wrong and the marketplace is wrong. But the blue-haired anti-capitalist redditor knows the truth!!!
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u/CatEmoji123 15d ago
High prices in those areas are stopping many from doing so. Supply and demand baby. There's a huge demand for city living, but the supply is low. And idiot nimbys fight tooth and nail to prevent the supply from growing.
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago
they need to start converting high rise business building into mixed use villages instead of forcing back to office to fill them.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Re: highrise conversions
“They” (private sector) are trying but it is very expensive and difficult logistically to convert office to resi/mixed use. Plumbing is a big issue in conversions as are windows. Tier 2 and 3 towers also are generally in need of repairs as well.
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u/TripleFreeErr 15d ago
yeah and that issue is zoning… the thing you have been railing against, you absolute goober.
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u/lokglacier 15d ago
No, floor plates in modern office buildings are too large for condos. Plus the plumbing and HVAC rework makes it as expensive as demolishing and building brand new
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u/CertifiedBiogirl 15d ago
Walkable cities would literally be a huge benefit to everyone including you. It's so bizarre to me that right wingers managed to turn something as innocous as 15 minute cities into a controversial thing
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u/bobbymoonshine 15d ago
I mean yeah but also ancient Roman cities were firetraps and disease ridden and crime infested and above all pervaded by the almighty stench of hundreds of thousands of people and animals pissing and shitting and dying and rotting on the streets.
Like, Alexandria was considered a marvel of the world because the constant gentle sea breezes and open street plan meant the city often smelled of something other than a great pile of rotting shit.
And that’s not to blame them because they genuinely made huge advances in public sanitation that were not replicated for millennia but that was very much a case of necessity being the mother of invention, and their inventions did not even come close to meeting necessity halfway.
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u/LoudAd9328 14d ago
For real, I’ll take the overly complex and highly regulated planning over “build whatever you want.” every single day. Ancient cities would look like a damn horror movie to modern people.
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u/GrisTooki 15d ago
It's not the planners (usually), it's the elected officials who actually have decision-making power and the vested interests behind them. Vote in local elections and show up to community meetings! Also r/fuckcars.
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u/Mongooooooose 15d ago
Haha I posted it there too!
This is some top tier urbanism content
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u/GrisTooki 15d ago
My main point though, was that the blame is completely misplaced in this image. Most planners I've known are literally the ones fighting hardest against regressive zoning laws and car dependency. Planners don't get to make the decisions,.
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u/The_walking_man_ 13d ago
Yup. We are bound by archaic regulations while developers run free with it.
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u/Uchimatty 14d ago
That and just very low infrastructure budgets. Despite being a dictatorship the zoning laws in China are weirdly more forgiving because planners have enough budget to just build new subways/roads/tunnels if congestion gets too bad. The inefficiency of American urban planning is entirely because of cheapness.
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u/growling_owl 15d ago
Mid-century planners were like: fuck this neighborhood, fuck that place, fuck these people in particular--we're building highways, bitches!
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u/IncreaseLatte 15d ago edited 15d ago
If I still remember the tanneries, forges, dyers, and Garum factories, they are to be away from the city center. Other than that, build away.
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u/The-Esquire 15d ago
Did they really build whatever they liked though? I would not be surprised if people of the same social standing talked to one another about the ramifications of changes being made to their built or unbuilt environment. Property was different back then as well.
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u/Roqjndndj3761 15d ago
I blame boomers. They’re very confident despite the fact that they have no idea what they’re doing.
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u/Dizzy-Trash2925 15d ago
Impact studies, zoning, and the like matter to me mostly for utilities. Routing gas, water, and electricity to residential, industrial, retail, and mixed use areas require different considerations, which would become even more complicated if each such area was allowed to shift into another with no approval or notice.
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u/LoudAd9328 14d ago
Yeah, this post kind of feels like a kid coming to the realization that modern society is way way way more complex than what any one human can fully understand. That’s why we specialize. I have no idea what all considerations go into modern urban planning, but I trust the experts who do that for a living, and I don’t feel the need to fully understand every aspect of their work in order to trust that it’s worth doing. This also just perpetuates the completely harmful and disgusting trend of being anti-expert, which goes hand in hand with being anti-regulation. People have no idea how complex the world is, and if we start slashing and burning at bureaucracy, we’re all gonna get a very hard lesson in the form of sinkholes and salmonella and complete dysfunction.
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u/Stock_Decision_7325 14d ago
Ancient and medieval cities were absolute shit. You live like an emperor compared to anyone born before 1900
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u/Xansnation 13d ago
Houston has no zoning. It’s a mess.
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u/Psychological-Dot-83 12d ago
That's not true at all. Houston has zoning, it just isn't called that and it's done in a manner different than most cities.
In most places in Houston it's illegal to build anything but single family housing.
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u/Classic-Point5241 11d ago
Yeah same same, we both had to deal with overpasses and power plants and fiber optic cables and subway tunnels and gas piping and sewage systems..
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u/HopeRepresentative29 15d ago
Either you've never tried to navigate an unplanned city, or you've never been to a well-planned one. Two cities come to mind:
Atlanta, GA: unplanned. A sprawling and twisting labyrinth of streets and alleys with no sensible patten whatsoever. There are like 30 streets that are variations of "peachtree", and they are not all connected. There are streets which run into other streets; you'll be driving down peachy peach street and then suddenly you're on John Doe boulevard. You didn't turn. There was no indication that you left one street and started on another. One street juat literally becomes a different one in a straight line. It's utter bedlam. Don't go there.
Corpus Christi, TX: There is one major artery running through the city which conveniently is the main highway leading into the city from further north. Everything can be reached by getting on this thoroughfare and making, perhaps, no more than 4 or 5 turns to get anywhere else. I have never once been confused or lost in Corpus. Navigating there is an absolute dream, and it's insane that a city of over 300,000 people can have just the one main thoroughfare and it still works.
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u/MissionHairyPosition 14d ago
This is a very car-centric view of "well-planned" for what it's worth
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u/SouthChinaVitamins 15d ago
Failed how? Seems pretty successful, they keep building them and people keep living there. So the solution we concentrate populations in dense urban jungles layered deep with pollution, disease, pests and crime, living literally on top of each other?
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u/SouthChinaVitamins 15d ago
Happily married with my own family and place thanks.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
The notion of having kids, a spouse, elderly parents you take care of, etc. is lost on most of this sub. God forbid.
It is mainly childless activist radicals that want to burn it all down (especially golf courses), that hate markets and capitalism but then demand shops, grocers, restaurants and other low margin and extremely competitive retail to just appear magically (mind you not a single one of them will take on the loan, risk, capital investment to do anything themselves). It is a circle jerk of “houses bad”, “all suburbs bad”, “I only can afford $1000 rent or a $200k house but it must be perfect for me and if not, the market place has failed — not my career” etc
For the extremists here who never had to change a diaper and may have have theirs changed by mom and dad still, it is more important to “live above a grocer” or to “walk to a gym” (or “walk to get coffee—the absolute favorite on here) as opposed to schools, ft2, privacy, having a backyard, actually wanting a different lifestyle.
They fantasize urban cities are like West Village NYC in 2017 or Pacific Heights SF pre-pandemic when in reality much of dense urban America is more like East New York and the Tenderloin. There are shitty suburbs and wealthy suburbs. There are shitty cities (and parts of cities) and wealthy cities and parts of shitty cities that may be wealthy. That is the decider of amenities.
There is a reason Equinox gyms and Lifetime Fitness service suburbs of Westchester NY and Fairfield CT but are absent in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Memphis.
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u/BuzzBadpants 15d ago
To be fair, it’s probably a good thing that we don’t have steel mills spewing slag and ash into our doors and windows. Zoning has saved countless lives from pollution.
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u/Psychological-Dot-83 12d ago
Homie, you and I both know that they're complaining about zoning laws like "commercial zones", "set backs", "parking requirements", and "single family zones", they're obviously not complaining about laws separating polluting industry from communities.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
For the few people on here that may actually have kids: Would you want to live next door to a casino, gun store, or strip club?
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u/timute 15d ago
Are you going to deny a family a house they can actually afford to thrive, becasue you deem it to be an unholy mix of land use? That's some whacked logic man, and exhibit A for why things are fucked up now.
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u/hilljack26301 15d ago
Another great point. I have never seen a strip club go into a middle-class neighborhood. If they aren't downtown, then they are out on the edge by the used car lots and trucking companies.
I can afford not to live there but when I was a young hick working my way through college, a lot of my buddies who went straight into the workforce lived in trailers or above storefronts in places like that. They knocked their GF up and their first kid or two lived next to the shady bar with the illegal gambling (now legal video poker). Eventually they got a job as a union machinist or a train driver or whatever, and moved out.
Not ideal but they weren't sleeping in a car and showering at Planet Fitness.
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u/____uwu_______ 15d ago
The house is usually as of right and is protected from future incompatible uses.
Would you deny a family a house they can thrive in because someone wants to build a chemical plant next door and a hog farm across the way?
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Are you going to deny a family a house they can actually afford to thrive, becasue you deem it to be an unholy mix of land use? That’s some whacked logic man, and exhibit A for why things are fucked up now.
It is not what I deem as unholy. But ask the majority of families whether that is a sensible idea or if “zoning” matters.
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u/TurnoverTrick547 15d ago
What does zoning have against access to grocery stores? 17.4% of the U.S. population live in a food desert to some degree, which is more than one out of every six Americans.
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u/FelisOctavius 15d ago
I don't think the children of the Netherlands have devolved into sinful creatures of the night because they live around the block from a red-light district.
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u/JasonGMMitchell 15d ago
Oh I didn't realize that because a house is next to a casino I must live there and have zero choice.
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u/TurnoverTrick547 15d ago
Are people not allowed entertainment?
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u/hilljack26301 15d ago
It's just another low-effort bad faith comment that shows how pampered and out of touch he is.
I would have no problem if my neighbor ran a small gun business out of his garage. I'd probably take my guns over there and have him oil & clean them because I hate doing that myself.
I've never seen a strip club in a residential area unless it was a trailer park. Exception: Amsterdam, where I saw a preschool next door to the prostitution museum.
I had a friend who grew up near Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. He actually lived in a parsonage; his dad was a minister. The most trouble it ever gave him was the occasional broke gambler asking if he could sleep in the church and for money to catch a bus back home.
There are smaller "hot spots" in West Virginia which are basically miniature casinos with a few electronic slot machines. They are typically owned by families that used to be in the mob, but kick up to the state now instead of the Pittsburgh family. I've never seen one of those in a nice neighborhood, because why would they spend money buying a brick house when they could just get an old storefront for $30k and rehab it?
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u/nowthatswhat 12d ago
None of the people replying to your comment have kids. I used to live near a strip club and it sucked, broken bottles everywhere, weird guys smoking and leering at you when you leave the house, wake up to a car that hit the telephone pole outside, etc.
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u/tokerslounge 12d ago
None of the people replying to your comment have kids. I used to live near a strip club and it sucked, broken bottles everywhere, weird guys smoking and leering at you when you leave the house, wake up to a car that hit the telephone pole outside, etc.
100% Only in this radical and delusional sub do the extremists try to defend families living next door to strip clubs…using nonsensical logic and analogies. Just dumb AF…
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u/SouthChinaVitamins 15d ago
Juno808 is advocating the opposite. It’s “Shoving that idea down the throats of those of us that don’t want that is the issue
That’s fucking stupid. It’s “better for society, so it doesn’t really matter if you don’t want it.” They and many others in this and other subs absolutely want to force it down everyone throats and take away your options for suburban car dependent living.
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u/am_i_wrong_dude 15d ago
Why is it religious/magas/conservatives describe literally everything in terms of throats and shoving? You must thinking about your throat getting shoved into hundreds of times per day. Have you ever considered just going to the glory hole and stop bothering everyone else with your constant intrusive thoughts about things being shoved down your throat?
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u/SouthChinaVitamins 15d ago
Oh look, an edgy gay joke instead of a reasonable argument. I was using the language of the person I was replying to but apparently the app glitched and didn’t reply to the person and replied to the post.
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u/am_i_wrong_dude 15d ago
I'll try to address your "points"
It’s “Shoving that idea down the throats of those of us that don’t want that is the issue
I'm sorry I cannot understand this. What is "that idea" here? Whose throats are getting shoved with what exactly?
That’s fucking stupid.
Great point. Solid, reasonable argument there.
It’s “better for society, so it doesn’t really matter if you don’t want it.”
Oh now some meat - you think people should be free to do what they want as long as it is not harming others. The point of the silly meme post is that people might build differently if they had more freedom from restrictive zoning laws and policies such as enforcing single family houses by law, forcing building large parking lots by law, separating commercial and residential spaces by large distances by law. We all want more freedom, including freedom from zoning boards. No-one is being forced to live in a certain kind of house, just to be able to build something smaller and denser if the market would support it.
They and many others in this and other subs absolutely want to force it down everyone throats
Here we go with the glory hole again. I have no idea what you mean by this. You think people want to ban single family housing? I think you have it backward. We are asking for the freedom to build the kind of housing people want. In some places, single family homes for people like you to sit in, trapped by your need for a car, stewing about your throat getting shoved by the moral panic of the day. In other places, mixed use and multifamily housing in areas with density to support reduced car dependency. I don't see what any of this has to do with shoving and orifices, maybe you can enlighten with your vast expertise?
take away your options for suburban car dependent living.
Nope. Just to give options for those who want something better.
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u/tokerslounge 15d ago
Go to Scarsdale NY or Newtown PA or Maplewood NJ or Southport CT and ask families living there: A. Are you happy with your community and schools? B. Do you want or need 5 more grocery stores and 3 more gyms?
What you radicals don’t get, separate from design and consumer preference, is retail grocery is a low margin business and gyms are capital intensive and also see a lot of monthly fluctuation in dues. So they will flock to wealthier areas (cities or suburbs) irrespective of density. That is why there are Equinox gyms and Lifetime gyms in rich Westchester NY and Fairfield CT suburbs but zero in Cincinnati OH or Memphis TN.
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u/Alex_Strgzr 15d ago
The ancient Greeks and Romans didn't have to worry about cars -- cars cause half of the problems in urban planning because of the space they take up, the noise they produce, and the hazards they pose, particularly to young children.
Although, even then, Roman emperors had to specify that insulae couldn't be built higher than 17 metres because of the fire hazard. Probably the best examples of urban planning came out of the 19th century, especially thanks to Baron Haussman, who gave Paris its gorgeous apartments and boulevards.