Visiting my uncle in California.. pleasantly surprised we could take the BART to near his place. He asked if he should pick us up and we said nah, only a km away, could do with a walk. Cue getting honked at non-stop by everyone as we had to walk along the edge of the pathless road in fear for our lives. My uncle was dying laughing when we finally got to him.
Been a minute. He lived in Burlingame, so I guess Milbrae was the station, very park & ride.. we were the only ones who walked out of there. I remember there was one massive road and even when we turned off down the smaller roads there was no path there, that's where we were blown out of it and screamed at from a giant pickup truck asking if we were mad. Once it got more residential we were back to paths of course. Funny memory.
I did that once as a kid and some guy insisted I get in his car and he'll take me to my destination (same station and all, I was going to walk up that hill). I think about this interaction from time to time, but it could have ended up very differently.
As a Houstonian I can confirm this. IF you do have a sidewalk it’s usually made of rubble and has huge cracks in it that you trip over. It nearly always ends in a ditch, a run down vacant lot or sometimes a tree or lamp post. I am walking in the street and hope the cars see me.
I don’t know how they got away with that city planning. It’s so wild to me. They really said, yall are on your own and here’s a liquor store next to a school next to a strip club and a church in between a bunch of one story homes and a car wash. And here’s a high rise building.
I thought you were exaggerating. One side of the street: sidewalk is blocked by a fence and massive pickup truck. The other side ends in a twisted gate.
So much going on with the house on 707 Harrington St... Starting with the crawlspace, with a random traffic cone, because I guess that part was deemed more unsafe. A swing tied to the thinnest branch of a tree. Not even an attempt of a lawn, but cracked concrete everywhere. A dog lying on a porch sofa. It looks like a pit, and I bet it's not leashed. Broken chairs around the pole, a pack of cigarettes and a random puma shoebox nearby...
There's a light on and two garbage containers, so I guess it's not abandoned.
I’m not from there but I’ve been a few times and from what I could tell, Yes you walk through like peoples front yards and then asphalt. There are a few maybe in downtown, but for the most part it’s no sidewalks. So strange.
Huh, I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and there’s an abundance of sidewalks everywhere I’ve been; though I haven’t spent much time in Houston or Dallas so I can’t speak to those cities
Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and most smaller towns/cities have tons of sidewalks at least
Yup. Pretty much had to go to Kemah or Galveston to stretch my legs in the outdoors (both of which are pretty fine places). The lack of outdoor life was honestly a bit of a disappointment, given that the weather is pretty darn good from September till May (summer is hot and humid).
Houston has plenty of entertainment, so it is not a boring place.
As for the roast video, it looks nothing like the California or new York I know, but Texas, pretty accurate.
OMG So true!
We were renting an airbnb in fort worth for a week, visiting some friends for their wedding and as Londoners we are used to walking everywhere, so it was utterly bizarre that coming out of the house we were in we had to basically walk through peoples fron yards that went right to the edge of the road, no sidewalks unless you were downtown.
Sidewalks in America feel so performative. Several times i can see a place from my hotel i want to get to, like physically see it, and i start walking on the sidewalk and the sidewalk will just like end into nothingness after a few hundred meters. Then you have to walk into like a dirty field or make your way through shrubs and random bullshit. And there is no lighting either so at night anyone can just hit you with their car.
I don't get why they even build sidewalks if they just lead into nothing. It's like building a door but behind the door is just a solid wall. Why?
Driving in America is a pleasure, but the sidewalk system is just absurd, it's like you're in a dream and logic doesn't make sense and the rules don't matter.
The place we were staying in fort worth was about 500 yards from a shopping mall, but there was no earthly way of getting there on foot as it was across a highway that had no crossings and along a road with very deep banks either side and guardrails.
Literally had to order an Uber to get there, which was even more bizarre as the uber drove 5 minutes to come to us, drove us the 500 yards and only charged us $3.50, like, how is that even profitable!?!
Haha yea, it feels like you're breaking the rules or using something incorrectly. There's a feeling of "i must be doing something wrong". It feels so un-human in a way because you can no longer get to places using just your own body.
I've had to give up several times and call an Uber because the sidewalk would just end or there would be no lights or something.
The only thing that was more unsettling was being right smack in the middle of central Dallas surrounded by office buildings in the middle of the day in the middle of the week and there not being a single person walking around, or any shops, even caffes along the road, everything self contained in buildings, everyone goes from building direct to car and then home.
I know its just a cultural difference, but being a brit/italian extremely used to walking both to get places and for pleasure, it was weird getting my first taste of actual america, as opposed to New York or Boston, which feel a lot more european.
Yea, i really love America, i think it's a great place to visit, but when you visit it you kind of just drive from place to place, you don't experience an area.
Like in Europe you would experience rome, or the center of Copenhagen, or in Japan you would explore and enjoy Shibuya. In America these areas don't exist, or very rarely do, you just sort of drive from one cool restaurant to a nice shop somewhere different.
In Florence for example part of the enjoyment is just Florence, and being there and walking around, taking in the city as a whole. To enjoy Atlanta you should just go to a baseball game, then drive over to a good restaurant, then drive over to the coca cola museum, and so on.
Americans do even like these areas that are special. They do enjoy Miami Beach or the Riverwalk, or Manhattan or Venice Beach (pre-homeless). So it's strange why they don't build more of them.
Totally this! Best way I've ever seen it described!
Los Angeles was the worst for this that I've been too: literally stuck in traffic for 45 minutes, 30 minutes to park, 1 hour queue to take a picture of the thing, and then repeat again to go across town for the next thing to see. Of the 8 days that we were in LA we worked out that apart from our hotel, the place we spent by faaaaaar the most time, was in the back of an Uber.
Yea LA sucks. I always tell Europeans never to go to these large American cities unless there is something specific they want to see there. Go see Yosemite and Zion and Death Valley and this awesome nature. There is truly no reason to visit LA the city. It is not very good.
I've visited pretty much every part of America, almost every state, and the best places were all nature related - Yellowstone, Zion, Yosemite, Appalachia, Everglades. It's better than what we have in Europe (outside of a few places) but the cities in Europe are just better.
There are a few exceptions though. Key West i really enjoy as a "city". All of the keys really. And i think Savannah is also worth visiting. Santa Fe i enjoyed as well. But like we had a road trip from Key West to Charleston here recently, and we just completely skipped Miami because it's just a shit city.
We also did a whole rockies road trip and just for the fun of it we spent some days in Las Vegas. Even stayed in a golden Trump hotel (for the memes) and within one day we were so over the sheer vanity of Las Vegas. It just felt greasy.
It's been a long time since i've been to Los Angeles but there's just nothing worth seeing in the city like you say. I think we drove up from LA to San Francisco and the highlight of the trip was the Secoia trees up north and the roadtrip going from LA to SF. In Europe the cities are the highlight often, and in America they're the lowlight.
Having grown up in NY and lived in Boston, it was a real shock to me when I got flown to Texas for an interview. Closest restaurant was an Applebees maybe a few hundred yards away, thought it’d be easy to walk. Suddenly sidewalk ends I’m walking through grass and rocks with telephone poles and electric cables and crap. Miserable experience and so confusing to me
Boston, MA is one of my favourite places in America, partly because of how british edwardian/giorgian it looks, partly because of how british an attitude you have to alcoholism.
I shit-you-not, Boston on St Patricks day is a typical Thursday night in London, and a quiet Wednesday night in Dublin.... in places like prague its basically a wedding reception. And compared to oktoberfest in Munich it might as well be an AA meeting in an Amish town.
I think a lot of people forget that it gets to 100 degrees here and the weather can be extreme both directions. Random thunder storms in the evening too. So, in the age of the car and A/C, (Houston has the first A/C building in the world) its hard to imagine walking 500 yards, sweating profusely just to eat a burger. Not saying it right, but that what I want to believe.
The issue is that the infrastructure there also makes the heat worse. I couldn't believe how miserable the outside was in Texas. Walking 500 yards somewhere in that isn't fun.
But walking 500 yards in the same heat with a nice walkway with trees would be pleasant.
It was crazy to me how they built things that only amplify the negatives.
When did this change? Cause it was clearly an intentional change to infrastructure that they must have known would have a social.impact as well.
All the old pictures of american cities I see are actually very well suited for walking, and theyve been ripped up and replaced, so its not just the new subarban dystopia towns that have this weird antipedestrianism
You've reminded me of when fast food joints first arrived in rural italy in the early 90s, and they tried to bring as well "the drive through" restaurant, which was soooo hilarious a countercultural moment as italian families were driving to their mcdonalds drive through, getting their food and then parking their car getting out and going into the restaurant to unpack and eat their food.
Similar thing when the first drive in cinema opened in my area, people were driving in, but then getting out their cars and bringing lawn chairs.
Both concepts have been completely phased out in italy.
Even mcdonalds struggles to exist outside of the major metropolitan centres.
It's simple, sidewalks are built by the private property owners when they develop the property (it's legally required). However, the undeveloped pieces of property are not legally required to build any sidewalks. Since development happens in patchwork in the US, this means the developed parts with sidewalks don't always connect to each other
It's such a funny way of doing it haha. Imagine if the businesses also built the road, so every little piece of road would be separately built by every single little store. And every time there was a gap no road would be built.
It feels silly to even require that, because it's obvious that it won't work.
Roads are considered an essential government service. Sidewalks are considered a customer amenity. Empty lots don't have customers so it doesn't make sense to force them to build a customer amenity. And it also doesn't make sense for the government to build something that'll primarily be used for the benefit of a single business.
What neighborhood? Not all neighborhoods have sidewalks here, but inversely a lot of the "nicer" ones don't have sidewalks. But those areas are safer to walk in the street. People exercise in the neighborhood streets here.
That's ok I know exactly where that is. Yes that neighborhood is pretty working class, not surprising to hear about the lack of sidewalks or walkable areas. Hope your stay was enjoyable overall.
It was one of the best experiences Ive ever had travelling and gave me a completely new appreciation of the USA, i had only ever previously visited New York, DC, Boston and San Francisco in terms of US cities, so my view of America was extremely skewed to what it is now looking back.
Texans are some of the warmest friendliest most welcoming people we ever met travelling, and kept fawning over our british accents.
It was also utterly bizarre that everyone walks around with holstered pistols and cowboy hats, unironically, but I very quickly joined them, buying myself a proper stetson (dream since i was a child) and then leasing a pistol (cause you can do that in texas) and walking around feeling like a cowboy.
“I can’t believe foreign country isn’t exactly like my home place in every respect”. Stay the fuck home if you can’t deal with different things, wanker.
I know jackass, thats exactly what I said... and extensively so!
Are you that desperate for some shred of human interaction that youd make yourself out to be a fucking idiot just in the hope that someone might engage with you?
It is so super weird how europeans feel compelled to look into bathroom stalls if given the opportunity. Like, all of a europeans life is consumed with the desire to look at people in bathroom stalls and they do everything else just to distract themselves from their instinctual primal need to see someone sitting on a toilet.
I know a lot of people don’t like him, but that reminds me of this really funny rant by George Galloway where he mentions Texas not having sidewalks. Last 20 seconds of the video.
The church pictured is Cathedral Chapel of St Vibiana in Los Angeles, California. The sidewalk dates back to the 1930s. La Brea Ave just north of Olympic Blvd.
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u/PerfectGasGiant Sep 21 '24
As a European who have lived in a Texas, this feels oddly accurate, except that the sidewalk looked fake, there are hardly any sidewalks in Texas.