[HN Gopher] Push for transit, walkable communities growing acros...
___________________________________________________________________
Push for transit, walkable communities growing across US
Author : rntn
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-05-19 17:43 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| jschveibinz wrote:
| I highly recommend Jane Jacob's' book: "The Death and Life of
| Great American Cities," (1961).
| atoav wrote:
| It is great to see that the ifea of walkable cities as something
| desireable seems to gain a little traction within the US. It is
| really one of the keys to a more sustainable future, all while
| being able to improve the quality of life of those living within
| it.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I dream about the death of stroads and banning suvs, making more
| towns walkable and friendly to people so kids can play outside
| without dying to cars. I really hope the US gets better at this
| soon.
| alexchantavy wrote:
| I wish that the choice between walkable communities and good
| public schools was not so much of a mutually exclusive choice in
| the US.
| willio58 wrote:
| Over the past 5 years I've definitely drank the kool-aid around
| walkability and better public transit. In the last year I moved
| to the one fairly walkable part of my city (of course it's the
| oldest part, this tends to be the case in most U.S. cities), and
| my quality of life has improved immensely. Feeling safe to walk
| around and go to restaurants, stores, parks without having to
| endlessly drive everywhere has been amazing for my mental and
| physical health. Plus I save money on gas and it's better for the
| environment!
|
| There's so much more we need to do though, especially around
| larger-scale transport like passenger rail. In most of the US we
| only have slow amtrak lines that aren't competitive in any way
| with airlines. I went to Spain and France a couple years back and
| got to ride metros, high-speed rail, etc. It's insane how much we
| as Americans rely on overly-large, dangerous, gas-guzzling 50k
| personally owned (financed) machines to get us around in our
| daily life.
| nunez wrote:
| Same; 1000%.
|
| We moved from a suburb deep in Southwest Houston (like, the
| last non-rural neighborhood before you enter what I would
| consider "rural territory") into a neighborhood in the heart of
| Houston (Montrose).
|
| Quality of life has gone up considerably in almost all axes.
|
| There are more erratic people on the streets here, so there is
| a perception of less safety. That said, I would feel much more
| comfortable walking around here at night than where we came
| from, as more people == more witnesses.
|
| Aside from that, I cannot overstate how awesome it is to be
| able to walk and bike to pretty much EVERYTHING that we used to
| drive 45 minutes to. It is also nice to unintentionally see all
| sorts of different people, in all sorts of different places.
|
| It is easy to think "well, you can either have an affordable,
| sizable house 45 minutes away from everything, or you can get a
| sardine can in the city", but I don't think that's universally
| true.
|
| All of the suburbs that I've been to that either predate or are
| about as old as cars are all walkable and have all vital
| community functions (school, church, city center, businesses)
| within walking distance.
|
| Suburbs that are completely secluded from others and REQUIRE a
| car to go from your house to anywhere (or from your house to
| ANOTHER house in the SAME COMMUNITY) is a relatively recent
| problem of our own creation.
|
| It needs to stop.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-19 23:02 UTC)