When I look at those neat American suburb grids and imagine to be a shop owner, I would love to put my store directly into the grid. Is it just not allowed to have a shop in those neighborhoods? Isn't that anti-capitalist lol?
That's correct, suburbs are the product of the worst housing experiment in the US, in which racists fled from cities to suburbs. They were designed to benefit white people in the aftermath of WW2, because white people were more likely to afford a car. More racism prevented POC from buying in the suburbs or qualifying for housing loans. A second layer of racism came when the Department of Transportation intentionally used Emminent Domain to design the highway network for disrupting and dividing neighborhoods of black people. The whipped topping of this racism pancake came from an unassuming supreme court case, which allowed for municipalities to "preserve the character of the community", which cemented racist single family zoning into city ordinances and prevents literally anything other than a single family home from being built
Suburbs without cars are food deserts. No shops, no public transit. Only single family homes, schools and pedophile shuffling services (churches). If I had to walk to buy any food (even fast food) it would be a 45 minute trip minimum.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !fuckcars@lemmy.world
almost: car-centric suburbs suck, other kinds are generally perfectly fine.
Like there are many suburbs throughout the world built around public transport and they're great, my fave is one to the northeast of gothenburg that is just a bunch of high-density housing and a tramline slapped into the hilly forest. Same population as my town and everyone living there has like a 10 minute walk to the forest at worst, and most people have a 5 minute walk to the tram.
Imagine being able to walk or cycle to a store in a few minutes while also not being in some dense urban hellscape 🇳🇱🇪🇺. Hopefully the US will learn to build better cities someday.
while also not being in some dense urban hellscape 🇳🇱🇪🇺
Fun fact: Although Amsterdam (~5,000/km2) fails to match the population density of New York City (~11,000/km2), similarly-human-scale Paris manages to almost double it (~20,000/km2) despite not having skyscrapers. Because of things like progressive setbacks and the need to build parking decks to comply with minimum parking requirements, NYC-style skyscrapers really don't buy you as much extra living space as you might think, compared to mid-rise apartment buildings that can use the entire city block curb-to-curb.
The most frustrating thing is being in a place with dense outwardly building urban development. Watching more and more copy/pasted strip malls go up with plans for "Subway. Smoke shop. Nails. Maybe gas station." (Yes, every time)
Aside from copy-paste labyrinthine housing developments.
You just wish you could shout loudly enough "You're doing it all wrong and there's still a chance to make this better!"
The most frustrating thing is being in a place with dense outwardly building urban development. Watching more and more copy/pasted strip malls go up with plans for “Subway. Smoke shop. Nails. Maybe gas station.” (Yes, every time)
If it's a strip mall with a surface parking lot (as opposed either having a parking deck, or having very little parking at all because it's TOD), it categorically doesn't count as "dense."
Sorry, I'll fix it... The suburbanite sounds like he, she, and/or they may unfortunately have a lot of other non-normative and potentially problematic life journeys going on besides just owning a car. Perhaps we should educate them by exchanging platitudes about living our best life?
Some of those other issues stem from being a suburbanite. No social interactions, no casual exercise by walking more than the length of their driveway, no easy access to either cultural institutions nor quality green spaces, etc.
Wat. I know it's cool to hate on the suburbs but in my view it's the best of both worlds.
No social interactions? I go to trivia night every week at a local suburban bar, it's very social. Or just out and about in my neighborhood you can easily run into folks walking their dog and have a some chitchat.
No casual exercise? My neighborhood is super walkable with hills and winding roads, and most houses have beautiful landscaping. There's no HOA so every yard is different, and most people put a lot of work and pride into it. So walking my dog or going for a jog is easy, safe, and pleasant.
No easy access to cultural institutions? I can easily go to local shows in the suburbs - and not just cover bands, but original music too, by some pretty well-known bands. Just as an example, a few years before covid we saw a double-headline show by The Psychedelic Furs and The Church at a theater 10 minutes from my house. There are also arboretums and preserves that have light shows with music, there are local playhouses, and there are even galleries and museums (though I admit these don't really compare to the art museum downtown, but it's rare I would go to one anyway).
No easy access to green spaces? Like I said, there are several parks, preserves, and arboretums near me. I can get to a small local park on foot - it's right outside my neighborhood. The closest arboretum is an easy 5-minute drive. I can get to a local farm in 5 minutes. There are a ton of streams (in fact my neighborhood has a sizeable stream in easy walking distance), and because of that, my backyard is filled with nature. The other day we had nine deer in our backyard. There's a red-tailed hawk that stalks our yard in the summer. We have chipmunks, garter sneks, raccoons, opossums, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, and all sorts of birds.
And if I need eggs I can walk five minutes to the market right outside my neighborhood, or be there in two via car.
Maybe I'm lame, or maybe I live in an unusually good area, but I love the suburbs.
if i'm feeling restless i'll just bike 20 minutes to the local egg farm and buy the eggs directly from their little unmanned shop, for a hilariously low price.
i have a lot of complaints about sweden but god damn stuff like this is nice
it's such a good business model, provided you can trust people not to steal
effectively 0 overhead and people can go there whenever they want, everyone wins except big companies, which means everyone else wins EVEN MORE
here in sweden we have an app called Swish which makes it trivially easy for anyone with a smartphone to send money to anyone else, so these places will just have a sign with their QR code that you scan and it automatically inputs their account number and the cost of the item. I want to live in a world where this is the standard way to sell things.
When the store is 100 mile/160 kilometer round trip, you either figure out a substitute or do without. And if you don't know what else to use, your favorite search engine is only seconds away from helping you with your problem. It ain't rocket surgery.
For the vast majority of my suburban life, whenever I needed eggs mid-recipe I just walked across the street to either the local grocery store or local convenience store to get eggs.
I live in the suburbs and am within walking distance of 3 places that sell eggs. Which is an anomaly, because yes this is one of many problems with suburban sprawl.
There are no sidewalks, bike lanes or even a shoulder on the road. I walked home from the tire shop next to the store one time last year and four people stopped to offer me a ride because it's that dangerous.
Also it's currently way below freezing here. I would still walk in those temps but not many people will, and not everyone can walk two miles each way (which is more like 1-2 hrs of walking total)
There are no sidewalks, bike lanes or even a shoulder on the road. I walked home from the tire shop next to the store one time last year and four people stopped to offer me a ride because it's that dangerous.
Also it's currently way below freezing here. I would still walk in those temps but not many people will, and not everyone can walk two miles each way (which is more like 1-2 hrs of walking total)
There are no sidewalks, bike lanes or even a shoulder on the road. I walked home from the tire shop next to the store one time last year and four people stopped to offer me a ride because it's that dangerous.