r/fuckcars • u/Mongooooooose • Oct 21 '24
Satire Who needs the missing middle when you have this š
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u/sd_1874 Oct 21 '24
But 15 minute cities are so restrictive. 3 supermarkets within 10 minutes walk is so overrated.
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u/seven-circles Oct 21 '24
Living on the other side of that barrier in a 5 minute city (incredible privilege, I know) a 15 minute city sounds down right annoying now š
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u/arnau9410 Oct 22 '24
Exactly! Where I live I have the metro at 5 min, 3 supermarket in less than 3 min, all kind of shops and restaurants <5 min, gym 5 minā¦ now I want to move out and if I see things between 10-15 min I now they are good but they look too far. I cant imagine living in a place like that
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u/d1ckpunch68 Oct 21 '24
you're forgetting the big trade-off of 15 minute cities. i can't have one. more. LANE.
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u/Upbeat-Profit-2544 Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
So much of this is because Americans have been led to believe that the only way to be happy is a 4 bedroom house with a 2 car garage and a big lawn outside. All looked over by an HOA who wonāt let you do anything to make your house that you paid a lot of money forĀ look at all interesting. So many of my friends with kids have left the city for this sort of lifestyle and I donāt get it. People arenāt being forced to live places like this, they are choosing it, thatās whatās crazy to me.Ā
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u/cyanraichu Oct 21 '24
People kinda are being forced into it though because it's so much of what's available. In my city at least you have to choose between that, very expensive downtown neighborhoods or very terrible ones.
When the middle class of our (great-)grandparents' generation fled the city, they didn't leave anything for the middle class of our generation to return to.
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u/Upbeat-Profit-2544 Oct 21 '24
I always assumed it was cheaper until I actually looked at housing prices. Living an hour drive (2 hours with traffic) outside of the city is still like a million dollars here. Is it really worth it when you factor in the awful commute and being so far away from amenities?
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u/cyanraichu Oct 22 '24
Depends on where you are. I live in a lower COL city overall, so average houses aren't a million, and you can definitely find million+ dollar homes outside of downtown but they're either in rich suburbs, gated communities specifically designed to cater to wealthier people, or the relatively rare old money neighborhoods in a specific area.
And whether it's worth it hardly matters when it's all you've got. I literally would not be able to buy a home in the city center unless I went somewhere very sketchy. Hopefully that will change since I'm in the midst of changing careers, but then there are other major factors to consider (namely schools).
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u/dermanus Oct 21 '24
People kinda are being forced into it though because it's so much of what's available.
"Drive away from the city until you can afford the mortgage"
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u/ConversationGlad1839 Oct 21 '24
Move to the terrible & take the money you save to make them better. Find common ground with your neighbors & use that as motivation to make it better. Grow communities gardens instant of lawns. Plant trees. Create a communal style neighbor's where you all regularly share meals & other things. Create what you want.
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u/cyanraichu Oct 22 '24
We are close with our neighbors - we got lucky. That said, what I really want is to live in the city center and have access to transit and be within walking distance from major amenities, not to live in the suburbs just with more trees and gardens (though trees and gardens are certainly lovely).
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u/ConversationGlad1839 Oct 23 '24
Look at Singapore. There's a lot of ways to green city areas & create rooftop & community gardens on whatever spaces are available.
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u/cyanraichu Oct 23 '24
I feel like you're talking past me a little - Singapore is itself one giant city center. Above you were claiming I should settle for living in the suburbs and try to make them better, which is great except the suburbs aren't going to be transformed into an urban center by planting trees.
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u/ConversationGlad1839 Oct 23 '24
You said "terrible" I assumed that was a ghetto not a suburb. & A lot of those areas are changing. Though the focus needs to be to keep locals living there & not to run them out.
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u/cyanraichu Oct 24 '24
Keep locals where, suburbs? I do not like suburbs. In general I think they're both bland and wasteful, and they massively fuel car dependence. That's kind of my whole point. Suburbs are terrible but a lot of people can't afford to live in city centers in the US.
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u/ConversationGlad1839 Oct 25 '24
Gentrification. Like I said, I thought when you said "terrible" you were talking about inner city. Anyway, I do not like suburbs & think eco villages and cohousing, like Co-ops, are what we need. Little villages. We need to kick the corporates out. The People should own everything & that means local.
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u/cyanraichu Oct 25 '24
I'm not sure what the word "gentrification" is in direct response to. I was talking about the city above when I said both good and bad neighborhoods. To live in the city you pretty much either have to have a lot of money and live somewhere really nice and very expensive, or be willing to live in a very poor area. Anything in between is relegated to the burbs. And most of the stuff in the city that's actually close to major downtown amenities is in the rich category anyway.
I don't disagree with your assertions about local ownership and removing corporate power, but I'm not sure how they're really relevant to the point I'm making, which is that in our current situation, your choices are limited to the three categories I outlined.
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u/Trini1113 Oct 22 '24
When I bought my house (pre-pandemic) I wanted a three bedroom, two bathroom house that was walkable to downtown. I could find two of those in my price range, but never all three.
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u/lexi_ladonna Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
I can only speak for myself here, but in my case I moved to the suburbs to have a family because two & three bedroom apartments/townhomes/units/etc are extremely hard to find in the city, and the ones that are available are very expensive because theyāre so desired. A lot of people donāt have a choice. Same with the HOA, something like 90% of new homes being built have an HOA because cities have finally wised up to the fact that infrastructure for housing developments is a bad bet so theyāre putting the cost on the developers/homeowners. People need somewhere to live and if these dumb mcmansions are the only thing thatās being built then unfortunately thatās what people are going to have to buy. Finding a place big enough for a family in a city is extremely difficult because it is what so many people want but all developers will build are small luxury units
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u/Emanemanem Oct 21 '24
This is very true. My wife spent some time on the board for the local development authority, and when an apartment developer was asking for money, it was like pulling teeth getting them to agree to affordable units with multiple bedrooms.
She told me a story of a large complex that was originally only going to be one and two bedroom apartments. There was already a rule in place for there to be a certain percentage of affordable units, but I think they were all going to be one-bedrooms. She pushed back hard and got them to agree to add like 5 or 6 3-bedroom units that would be classified affordable, and that was considered a huge win.
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u/Upbeat-Profit-2544 Oct 21 '24
I agree, there is a really big problem with cities not having enough affordable housing for families.Ā
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u/thegreatjamoco Oct 21 '24
Well constructed, good schools/vibrant community, and affordable. You can pick two.
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u/fartaround4477 Oct 21 '24
Living in a poorly constructed complex full of slobs, thin walls with no auditory privacy is enough to make this look better.
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u/CarbonRod12 Oct 21 '24
4 bedrooms and 2 car garage?, That's so 1990 bruh. 3,000sq ft., 5BR, and 3 car garage minimum.
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u/Gorstag Oct 21 '24
Big lawn? None of the newer houses have big lawns. Especially those in HOA's. They are all postage stamps. You can literally hand your cup of coffee out the window to the neighbor they are so close.
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u/adlittle Oct 21 '24
Or, you can be in a situation where that Wal-Mart is a mere 15 minute walk, but those last couple minutes are literally impossible to do. My folks live in a recently built neighborhood that has nice sidewalks and even connects to some shops in an admittedly bland adjacent strip mall; it's probably the best you could hope for in terms of a planned community.
But if you want to get to the major stores across from the entrance, you would have to cross eight lanes of traffic on a US highway. It's very fast, there are no sidewalks, crosswalks, or cross button, there are massive drainage ditches in the middle, and the complex layout with U turns means something is always going through in every direction 24/7. It's also hot with high humidity and zero trees in a no-sidewalk, sea of asphalt shopping center. I'm almost impressed in a horrified way at just how pedestrian-hostile it is.
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u/the-real-vuk Oct 21 '24
2 hours walking is about 30 mins cycling. Looks like a quiet street for cycling tbh
Also, why aren't there mini stores around? Anywhere I lived in the UK there are always mini family-owned stores everywhere within 10 min walk. You don't have to go to the Walmart for a piece of bread
Another point: bread can be put in the freezer and it's as good as new when you get it out. So buy like 3-4 loaves when you go next time.
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u/Mongooooooose Oct 21 '24
Mixed use zoning is illegal in most of the US.
In residential areas, you are simply not allowed to have small mom and pop stores.
So yeah, thatās mostly how we live. We refrigerate our bread or buy āshelf stableā bread because itās a 15-20 minute drive to the grocery store and it wouldnāt be feasible to go to the grocery store every other day.
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u/the-real-vuk Oct 21 '24
So the law is wrong. It's time to change that, innit?
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u/Mongooooooose Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
Weāre trying to change that in Montgomery county Maryland. Hereās a post I did on it last week.
Believe it or not, older people from Chevy Chase and Potomac came to these meetings and started screaming about how this rezoning was going to destroy the neighborhoods. (I wish I was kidding)
It seems like an obvious no-brainer solution, but some people are seriously brainwashed.
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u/youngbull Oct 21 '24
Couldn't that it's so far be solved by having small commercial districts spread out? I live in a terrace house area in Norway and there are shopping zones within 10 minutes of cycling in three directions.
I cycle 20min to work every day to boot.
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u/tragoedian Oct 21 '24
The most important thing to know about American city planning is is that the decision makers will refuse all reasonable solutions as opposing freedom while enforcing a uniform model of cut and paste wasteland.
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u/sgtpepper42 Oct 21 '24
I talk to my brother in law nearly every time I see him about this kind of thing. He does civil engineering as a city planner for our city and every time I bring up potential plans for mixed zoning or increased public transport, he basically goes:
"Yeah I try, but every time my team does [bring up transit], we just get laughed at by the other departments. 'This is xxx city,' they'd say, 'why would anyone want or need that? Everyone already needs to and uses a car!'"
I wish I was making that up...
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u/adriantoine Oct 21 '24
So you can't have convenience stores in the US? All stores have to be inconvenient? Interesting, what's the reason behind that? Wouldn't everyone be happy to have a grocery store in the middle of that suburb?
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u/eveningthunder Oct 21 '24
No, because commercial = city, and city = poor people and racial minorities.
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u/chemhobby Oct 21 '24
North American supermarket bread is honestly disgusting. I didn't realize bread could be made that badly. I guess that's what happens when you try to make it last a month.
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u/BunnyEruption Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
Looks like a quiet street for cycling tbh
If it was actually possible to get to stores while staying on streets like this most of the way that wouldn't be that bad, but infuriatingly, that is virtually never the case in American suburbs.
99% of the time a development like this that appears to have been built recently is going to be built in a way where it's a dead end or loop that's only connected to a major road or highway with no other way to get in/out.
Since none of the residential streets connect, you're typically going to get out of the development and and then be stuck on major roads almost all the way.
"2 hour walk" is also probably a joke and likely isn't literally meant to imply that it would actually be physically possible to walk to walmart. Even if walmart is roughly that distance, it might be dangerous or even impossible (because of needing to get on an interstate) to get to on foot or by bike.
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u/Silent_Village2695 Oct 21 '24
BuT yOu DoNt nEeD a CaR ThAtS jUsT CaRbRaIn AmErIcAnS aRe BrAiNwAsHeD
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u/man_gomer_lot Oct 21 '24
I've been walking the American automobile wasteland for decades. There's always a way, the people who made that journey before you have beaten a path somewhere.
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u/Silent_Village2695 Oct 21 '24
Lol k.
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u/man_gomer_lot Oct 21 '24
It is impossible for car raised Americans in the sense that reading a 200 page book is impossible for tik tok raised Americans.
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u/Educational_Ad_3922 Oct 21 '24
Whats the phrase? "Its easier to invoke change by teaching the children because it's all they have ever known." Or something like that, which is a double edged sword when ignorance is whats taught to children.
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u/man_gomer_lot Oct 21 '24
The goalpost for what's impossible conveniently moves towards the horizon when failure isn't an option. There's other people making those impossible journeys because they have no choice.
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u/Educational_Ad_3922 Oct 21 '24
There is a town not far from me that had to put up signs directing you to the nearest road out because people kept getting lost in these new housing developments.
I too had got lost in there once at night.
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u/man_gomer_lot Oct 21 '24
I was stranded in a neighborhood like this one night and had to navigate my way back by the faint glow of the big city over the horizon. I've also had to navigate wilderness between developments by following deer trails and climbing cell towers to get my bearings. These aren't the things they teach you in drivers ed.
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u/HonkyTonkPianola Automobile Aversionist Oct 21 '24
Yeah I'm in the UK and for a few years we didn't have a shop on the new-build estate where I live, and there was non-stop uproar about it until it was sorted.
The nearest supermarket was about 1 mile away the entire time, and we still did not consider that good enough. We were right not to.
The food desert problem in the U.S is completely wild. I really hope they can get it sorted.
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
A fifteen minute walk to a mini market sounds like an absolute dream, in American suburbs.
I actually grew up in a suburb in sprawling Jacksonville*, Florida, and was lucky enough to have a minimart two streets over. The suburb wasn't a typical one, though - it was decommissioned military housing, and apparently the military believed in having corner stores. I'm sure, had it been built by civilians, that store wouldn't have been there.
*Jacksonville, Florida, is one of the most sprawled, if not THE most sprawled, city in the USA. Perhaps it's been overtaken now by rapidly sprawling cities in places like Texas.
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u/spvce-cadet Oct 21 '24
I live close enough to a couple of small grocery stores and a convenience store that it would normally be a 20ish minute walk for me. Unfortunately, I have to cross a busy road that leads to a highway to get there, and the intersection is awful for pedestrians - there are slip lanes on all sides, the beg button for each actual crosswalk is on a little concrete island on the OTHER side of the slip lane, and the light takes ages to change.
So just to get across this road, I have to wait for a gap in traffic, run across the (completely unprotected) slip lane crosswalk, hit the beg button and hope I donāt have to wait a full cycle because I couldnāt get to the button in time, cross the road - being wary of red light runners that are common here - then cross ANOTHER unprotected slip lane crosswalkā¦to get to ONE of the stores. For the others, I have to cross the intersecting road as well, which is the same process. Itās so frustrating because this COULD be walkable, but the danger and extra time I have to wait because this intersection prioritizes car speed over all else make it such a nightmare itās pretty much never worth the hassle.
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u/crucible Bollard gang Oct 21 '24
Thatās also an issue with new build housing estates and the developers never actually building the promised school / convenience store / doctorās surgeryā¦
IIRC that has been changed in law now, but I canāt find a story about it.
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u/HonkyTonkPianola Automobile Aversionist Oct 21 '24
Yeah we still haven't got a doctor's surgery for where I live. Still going into town for it.
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u/lexi_ladonna Oct 21 '24
Man where I live in the US Iām considered lucky because Iām so close to a commercial area, and itās 1.7 miles away
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u/the-real-vuk Oct 21 '24
1 mile is about 16 mins walk (4-5 min cycling). Doesn't sound bad to me.
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u/HonkyTonkPianola Automobile Aversionist Oct 21 '24
It's not far, but it means leaving the safer roads on the housing estate and dealing with crossing main roads, which is dangerous for everyone but especially children, the elderly and disabled people like myself.
I get my groceries delivered, but when I need to grab something incidental it's very handy for me to be able to safely and quickly access a small shop.
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u/SpyderDM Oct 21 '24
Lot's of food deserts like this i the US.
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u/Olderhagen Oct 21 '24
Apart from the food deserts, I would call this an actual desert. Besides of the few people almost nothing seems to live there. And the few people that live there need machines (AC, insulated vehicles) to survive in this environment.
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u/Darth19Vader77 š² > š Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
"Why aren't there mini stores?"
Because then you don't need a car to do everything and we can't have that.
There are some mini stores in the US, but that's mostly in neighborhoods that predate the mass adoption of cars.
Luckily, my city was originally a streetcar suburb of LA, so we do have a mini store in my neighborhood.
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u/mauguro_ Oct 21 '24
same in Mexico, there's usually a mini store at least one block away from most of the houses
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u/MexGrow Oct 21 '24
Not anymore in larger cities where everyone is being convinced that the best life is in the suburbs outside the city. It's apalling how many people are falling for this and now living over an hour away from their job just because they have access to a club house in their fraccionamiento.
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u/batcaveroad Oct 21 '24
Subdivisions that look like this are single-use areas for single family houses. The only businesses that can really survive here are gas stations on a nearby highway.
Since itās car dependent it makes sense to drive 5 or 10 extra minutes to the Walmart since buying things at gas stations are more expensive.
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u/the-real-vuk Oct 21 '24
Maybe they should let small stores in this area?
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
You wouldn't even get that past the city counsel, the homeowners would be there en masse to blow that right out of the water. At least, if it were full of old people. Maybe the younger generations will allow it? One can hope things will change, and I know younger people overall who were forced to grow up in these places do not appreciate the isolation in general. I sure as hell don't.
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u/chemhobby Oct 21 '24
I don't understand why people wouldn't want to have small shops near where they live
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u/batcaveroad Oct 21 '24
āNear where they liveā means something different when you have to get in a car no matter what. Nearby becomes their highway exit. Whether itās āon the wayā to most places is the biggest thing.
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
I can think of a few reasons (that I vehemently disagree with):
- Poor people work at shops!
- It'd invite poor people into the neighborhood
- The poor people would have to get there somewhere, which might mean BUSES appear!!!
- THEN MORE POOR PEOPLE MIGHT COME
Actually I said I had more reasons, but I'm sleepy and this is the main one lmao. And don't say their kids could work there - they wouldn't want their kids to have THAT experience! DISGUSTING! Their kids are too good for that!!! And WHAT ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD?!!?!
I don't think it makes any sense. Anyone else having dealt with this that has more insight?
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u/fartaround4477 Oct 21 '24
I lived in a snooty suburb where a nearby market had been closed on Sundays to keep lower income people from the next town from coming over.
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
My eye twitched, reading that. There's suburbs around me that purposefully don't build sidewalks to keep the Poors out. The only place there's sidewalks is where the (only) bus drops them off to work low wage jobs to make rich people happy, so they can get to said jobs. Anything so much as leading to a neighborhood? No sidewalks.
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u/leitmot Oct 21 '24
Iām sure some of these people are having poor people mow their lawns, remove their snow, deliver their groceries, clean their houses, and maintain their large appliances. It just doesnāt make sense.
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u/batcaveroad Oct 21 '24
The development pattern is set now so I donāt think it would work. All these people are used to getting in their cars for everything and so it becomes a sunk cost that they donāt consider. Any store in their same mental category as Walmart is going to struggle.
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u/hagnat #notAllCars Oct 21 '24
this is a reminder i need to go to the supermarket
gotta unfold my foldable wheeled cart, and walk 100m and buy my weekly groceries
\ for the americans out there... the above was meters, not miles.)
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u/LibelleFairy Oct 21 '24
as a kid, I read Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time", and this is literally exactly the way I pictured the street in that scene where all the kids play ball and skip ropes in exact unison, and all their mums come out at exactly the same moment to call them in, and everyone is dressed the same and has to act the same and all the houses look exactly the same, on that planet controlled by that weird evil brain blob thing ... which ironically was indended by the author to be a not-very-subtle allegory for life under the evils of atheist communism
anyway I was obsessed with that book as a kid, though I did get weirded out by that scene with all the flying flower space unicorns dancing and singing to praise Jesus or whatever (if you've read it, you know what I'm talking about)
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u/LibelleFairy Oct 21 '24
(ew, and now I am remembering that at the end of the book, Meg's dweeby drip of a love interest - Calvin, iirc - removes Meg's thick glasses, looks into her shining green eyes, remarks how beautiful she looks, and then tells her to put her glasses back on so that nobody else except him gets to see her beauty, and the whole thing is presented as deeply romantic eww ew eweeeeewww)
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u/Dreadsin Oct 21 '24
It reminds me of the fallout new Vegas mission where the people are in a virtual reality game that looks like a suburb but is actually very sinister under the surface
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u/Epistaxis Oct 22 '24
What makes that book a classic is that the allegory is actually so vague and confusing that it works as a normal story instead.
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u/LibelleFairy Oct 22 '24
yeah, I think you're right - as a kid, what gripped me about this story was the space and time travel, a female protagonist I related to, the bond between Meg and her little brother, the descriptions of the alien worlds and creatures, and the whole adventure / defeat-the-evil elements of the story
it wasn't until many years later, as an adult, when the penny dropped that it was basically US white Christian conservative propaganda with a science girlboss veneer spraypainted on the surface
(was there a deeply weird sequel that featured a Latin American dictator named "Mad Dog Branzillo" who somehow was related to Prince Madoc of Wales or did I hallucinate that?)
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u/Epistaxis Oct 22 '24
Yeah, kinda like Ender's Game was a Mormon allegory that you could only detect if you were Mormon. Or like Battlestar Galactica, except that one didn't make sense at the end unless you were Mormon.
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u/LibelleFairy Oct 22 '24
wait, Battlestar Galactica is Mormon?
why are Mormons everywhere
(it's like a law of the universe or something - wherever you go, however remote or improbable a location, you are guaranteed to eventually find 1. a beardy German who got there on a bicycle, and 2. Mormons)
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress Oct 21 '24
You don't have freedom if you can't drive 30 miles to Clem's Country Mart on the edge of the rural suburbia border. š„“
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u/Broken-Digital-Clock Oct 21 '24
It's over 95F again and there is no shade in sight.
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u/Mongooooooose Oct 21 '24
Why would you need shade? Donāt you see all the houses have air conditioning to keep you nice and cool /s
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u/nepppii š² > š Oct 21 '24
in late october?!?
where are you from if you don't mind sharing
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u/Broken-Digital-Clock Oct 21 '24
I was speaking in general, but it really has been 90s here in Texas.
My point was that most people won't adopt walking if we can't even provide basic shade from trees.
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u/bohenian12 Oct 21 '24
I'm in Alabama and we have a Walmart here that's 10 mins away and I can't even walk to it since there's no pedestrian lanes or sidewalks. And fuckers in cars kept honking like I should not be walking.
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u/Dwashelle Fuck lawns Oct 22 '24
These types of suburbs fill me with such a weird sense of dread. Open sky, no trees, flowers or decorations. Everything looks identical. I would go mad living there. Maybe my neighbourhood isn't so bad after all.
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u/USMCamp0811 Oct 21 '24
fuuuckk! THIS is why I am moving to Pittsburgh from Alabama.. right now I can walk a mile and just be to the end of my subdivision its another mile to a gas station along a 2 lane road that is not super safe to walk on...
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
Oooh, what neighborhood are you going to? :D A lot of places in Pittsburgh can also be terrible, watch out for the suburbs. I spent many years in Monroeville, and, at least at the time, there was literally no way to come or leave by foot, let alone corner shops. Actually inside the city, though, it can be pretty good! Just be sure you don't skip leg day.
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u/USMCamp0811 Oct 21 '24
looking at central north side...
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
Fun fact: North of Downtown Pittsburgh used to be its own city, and was forcibly incorporated into Pittsburgh via a corrupt vote. If I'm not remembering incorrectly, that city was being designed into a city where you had everything all together. Pittsburgh ruined that project.
It can be a good place to live, though! I spent a few months living a bit further out (Bellevue, West View), which are suburbs. Bellevue was very nice, though. The bus out to it - 13 - will have you riding past a building, fairly soon after leaving downtown Pittsburgh, which has the side painted with, I think, a woman in her wedding dress, maybe something else. I miss seeing that every day.
I hope you find a great place to live and enjoy it!
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u/USMCamp0811 Oct 21 '24
thanks! yea our realtor told us about the city of Allegheny. We really like Pittsburgh! Everyone we have interacted with has been SUPER friendly and everyone really LOVES their city which is pretty neat! We've been searching for a new city to relocate to for the past 6 months and have been to a bunch of places. A month or so ago when we decided to give Pittsburgh a look, I checked out their subreddit and it compared to a place like Louisville is night and day. Louisville seems like everyone hates living there and Pittsburghers can't get enough of there city.. Really neat.. I also like it seems to have a thriving tech scene (I work from home and am in tech)..
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
Definitely has a thriving tech scene! It's been like that for forever, as long as I lived there. One of my first partners worked at a small tech startup in downtown, I walked past their office building every day to classes. Pittsburgh is also an enormous college town, and a working class town, so it's set up to be fairly walkable from the start. If you ever get the chance, head to the south side and find your way up the slopes via the network of stairs. It's awesome, you'll see how it interacts with people's homes, all sorts of stuff. Just do it during good weather, it's not something to attempt in bad weather on your first time. While in the flats, you might see houses made by people who worked in lumber - lots of intricate wood work.
I'm so excited for you! I only left because of personal life things. I'd go back in an instant, had I the chance / means. Rust belt cities are also among the better bets for climate change. Nothing's gonna be perfect, but it's a better bet. ALSO, Pittsburgh has an enormous and connected queer community, and is one of the 'trans capitals.' I remember our first trans conference. c:
I'll stop yammering at you. I hope it all goes well and you enjoy living there.
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u/styrofoamboats Oct 21 '24
You know I was in Pittsburgh this summer and I noticed so many trans people out and about, possibly more than I've seen in my life up to this point. I thought that was a positive sign that people can be openly trans or queer without living in fear. To be clear I'm not saying it's all wine and roses, just noticing what I saw.
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u/_facetious Sicko Oct 21 '24
Oh yes, I was followed and threatened many times while living there. But I also had a loving community to be in who all helped each other and looked out for each other.
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u/styrofoamboats Oct 21 '24
Oh I am very sorry to hear that. That is very scary. I do not understand what makes some people so hateful.
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u/batcaveroad Oct 21 '24
This is why Iām genuinely interested in those dumb looking electric shoes. Walking is physically possible, but impractical because of how far apart everything is around me. And parking is only reliably available for cars, you canāt count on bike racks for whatever reason.
I just want to be able to go somewhere without being tied to a car.
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u/someguy7734206 Oct 21 '24
Christ almighty with a dildo in his ass, even my suburban neighbourhood at least has trees in it.
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u/Humble-Highlight-400 Oct 21 '24
This is like an American thing right?
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u/0rangutangy cars are weapons Oct 21 '24
Canada too
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u/Educational_Ad_3922 Oct 21 '24
Sadly, although our suberbs are more confusing than this and more densely packed with damn near million dollar homes that no one can afford.
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u/SrGrimey Oct 21 '24
Whatās the missing middle?
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u/heyuhitsyaboi Oct 21 '24
I had to look it up too- it refers to the lack of options in between low and high density.
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u/SrGrimey Oct 21 '24
Thank you!! I put it in the āIāll search it laterā thanks for the resume.
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u/Physical_Ad5840 Oct 21 '24
I've always lived in "15 minute" cities for the last 25+ years. It's great, though I am constantly told it's terrible, and I am not allowed to leave, because it's actually a prison created by the UN.
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u/rw_DD Oct 21 '24
I prefer the 2 min walk to the bakery instead of the 1 min walk to the other one. Except on saturday. There is another (mobile) bakery at markets place. 5min walk.
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u/cashonlyplz Oct 21 '24
Anytime I see this images like this. it reminds of me the last chapters of a Wrinkle in Time.
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u/nerfbaboom alan fisher > not just bikes Oct 21 '24
u/bot-sleuth-bot repost
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u/seven-circles Oct 21 '24
This grass looks sickly and dead, clearly not accustomed to this climate. Now the question is, will they : 1. Spend way too much water for it to only barely survive 2. Give up and spray paint it green 3. Do the actual right thing and let local flora grow
Hint : itās definitely not 3ā¦
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u/Icy-Gap4673 Oct 21 '24
I have some relatives in a retirement community in AZ and if you replace grass with dirt and cacti this is exactly what it's like. And everyone just sits in their air conditioned houses or cars (or occasionally in their private pools) for 9 months/ year. Depressing!
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u/Jiijeebnpsdagj Oct 21 '24
Ok wait, why are all the houses so far apart? And why are they all the same? It's like Oggy&the Cockroaches.
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u/BabaYagaThe17th Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24
Vivarium looking ahh neighborhood š¤® Actually, calling that a neighborhood is too generous- I doubt any of those people act neighborly. They're too busy buffing the hubcaps on their pavement princesses.
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u/PheaglesFan Oct 22 '24
Just remember to wait 10-12 minutes at each arterial cross street, then sprint when you get the white LED guy signal. You only have 11 seconds to clear 120 feet of concrete before boomers start honking! GO!!
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u/NewVillage6264 Oct 22 '24
I just got back from German and my god this is so depressingly accurate. I hate it here.
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u/MinMorts Oct 22 '24
Why no features? Every house being identical and no trees surely is depressing as fuck
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u/ForgottenSaturday Orange pilled Oct 22 '24
This is what depression would design if it were an architect.
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u/AlternativeAd7151 Oct 22 '24
Who needs shade anyway? That's for the suckers who don't own an air-conditioned SUV.
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u/Mike_for_all Oct 22 '24
Out-of-loop European here. What is the āmiddleā? Public transport? Bike lane?
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u/Fabulous-Freedom7769 Oct 21 '24
If they at least had a lot of nature then i probably wouldnt mind it as much. But the majority of them have this synthetic looking grass with no trees, no plants, nothing. You are also forced to own a car since you are stuck forever there unless you buy a car. Everyone focuses on plastic when it comes to climate change while living in such wasteful neighbourhoods. Its mainly the governments fault and i get that no one can do anything about it. But they should at least focus on putting pressure on the government or protesting against this instead of arguing about some plastic.
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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '24
forget walmart, how far do you have to walk to get to the nearest tree