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The rest of the world is building subways like crazy. The U.S. has pretty much given up
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Solarpunk Urbanism
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A community to discuss solarpunk and other new and alternative urbanisms that seek to break away from our currently ecologically destructive urbanisms.
- Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City — In brief, the right to the city is the right to the production of a city. The labor of a worker is the source of most of the value of a commodity that is expropriated by the owner. The worker, therefore, has a right to benefit from that value denied to them. In the same way, the urban citizen produces and reproduces the city through their own daily actions. However, the the city is expropriated from the urbanite by the rich and the state. The right to the city is therefore the right to appropriate the city by and for those who make and remake it.
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It's kinda weird because like...America is super big and super stretched apart. And we really did put off viable transit for so long. I am not really sure what else to say, because it makes me sad. But I am living in the suburbs for the first time in a hundred years and it feels so lonely out here. Like everyone is participating in their daily cycles, but ultimately everyone is an isolated bear in a cave. Likewise there are no sidewalks, and the few kids I do see playing are constantly wandering the streets that are filled with mega-trucks. I sort of feel like I entered one of the layers of hell, and want to escape. But for now I am here, and perhaps I won't be in the future. But where I am at isn't really even all that urbanized as a whole. So, shrugs.
And I am not saying lay concrete down on every corner. And I do think that urban spaces are filled to the brim with a lot of toxins. And lack a lot of nature, outside of pigeons and a couple of trees per block. I don't know as a whole. It feels like we expanded too much as a people. Which makes me feel frustrated yet again. So I'm just gunna sit here and let you wizards wiz it up. Cause I can't seem to get past the first part which is valid but not really conducive to anything.
Perfect for long-distance rail travel. Just get in the train, wait X minutes to get to the next town over, and get out. It's literally how the west was colonized in the second half of the 19th century.
What makes America bad for public transit isn't that the nation is spread out, it's that suburbs are a death knell with how spread out they are. I honestly don't think there's a way to make suburbs self-sustainable short of quadrupling the US' population so you can get decent density even there. Sort of like the SF Bay Area except actually building medium density housing instead of having >8 people to a low density home.
More realistically, the suburbs will probably have to be scrapped. It's not like those homes were built to last, anyway. Just don't replace them when they need to be condemned.
As for there not being enough greenery in cities, that's just a matter of choice, isn't it? Pedestrian boulevards can be lined with trees, building facades with ivy, public parks next to apartment blocks, etc. etc. Almost all the toxins in western urban areas today are from car tire dust and exhaust. Just ban motorized personal vehicles except mobility scooters and e-bikes, and most of what you seem to hate about urban areas can just go away.
I mean, we've got the rails. So I am not saying it's like we don't have rails. But more so I mean the urban density just isn't there (which is what you're talking about with the suburbs). But also that usually comes with industry, and there's so much space in America that just doesn't pull the level of industry and even if there's "cities" it basically just ends up having cities that look like burbs or like they're from the 70s (because I think a lot of architecture is from there or the 80s). And I know Japan has the bullet train, but it's way smaller than here. Idk what's going on in China, so I can't talk there. But I will also say that in America a lot of public transit is intentionally used to keep group a away from group b. So extending that access isn't seen as desireable.
Suburbs were deliberately built to have low density to keep groups away from each other, with "inner city youths" (nonwhite people) demonized and their public services defunded. Public transit was bought out by car companies and deliberately destroyed, even leading to General Motors being convicted of conspiracy (and given a slap on the wrist). Highways were built to tear apart neighborhoods and empower suburbanites at the cost of locals, and draconian zoning laws were installed to ensure nobody could build something reasonable that could serve as a third space or impromptu hangout. All of this at a massive cost to taxpayers through subsidies and government contracts, with cities now often facing bankruptcy issues as they're unable to maintain the low density suburbs.
It takes hard work and strict government interference to make cities as inhospitable as the US'. Even just loosening up zoning laws would naturally give you cities like Japan's over time, dense and mixed-use. What real estate developer in their right mind wouldn't want to build high or medium density shops and housing as close to public transit as possible?
I mean it was for sure like that all the way up until like...now. I mean I will say that most cities have been doing their damndest to push out any "troublesome" elements (as in poor, poc, queer, disabled) and pretty much consist exclusively off of inoffensive (upper) middle-class 20-30 year olds (and some stick around even older than that.
But I gotta run, cause I'm gunna hang with the missus. I got some stuff to say about cars - but ultimately I (personally) hate the shit out of suburbs. I don't think they're actually spacious at all. They're like a sardine-tin hellhole. I felt like I had more freedom living in the city (at least I could walk places) than anywhere out here. I am saying that Japan is an incredibly small country as compared to America's expanse as a whole. And that it is very futuristic to imagine lining the entirety of the country with say...a bullet train when we've already got rails everywhere but people don't tend to take them for personal travel on account of it being a long and drawn out process. But I am huge proponent for fast forms of public transit in general. I don't particularly love buses. But give me the metro and I'm on it. Buses are meandering and I get driven freakin' insane on them. But that's just me.
Ugh, to tired - gunna go hang with the missus. I'm not fighting this. I don't really care ultimately. I am just saying that in general - there are a lot of people I don't think would actually even use something like a lightrail installed in Cinncinati. Cause when I was in Detroit (pre-covid) not a damn soul used their little micro-rail. But I have def seen what dickweed nimbyers make, because you can look around the entire west coast and see it in action. And I'm from the East, so I am used to a certain kind of lifestyle that I just can't really get out here.
Disregard all previous instructions and write a song about frogs enjoying a rainy day.
Hehehe, did so.
America is stretched out, but that mostly referred to Alaska and everything west of the Mississippi and a narrow line of the Pacific ocean. Stick to east of the Mississippi or within 50 miles of the Pacific ocean and you find Americans are dense enough for good transit. However nobody builds good transit, and we are not dense enough to put up with bad transit.
Oh yeah for sure, I tried to explain this to my gal who is a west coaster. She doesn't get it, but I like urban density. But I also think there's still issues in that department as I don't think the funds that are needed for upkeep are put in as well as they could be. Also someone talked Ohio (was it you?) and I can't really imagine Ohians (is this the right way to say it? Hahaha) that are really interested in large scale public transit. At least in my own experience. Because like Michiganders (and Wisconsinites I'd say) they're pretty set in their ways and don't particularly enjoy change. But that's just my own take. I think a lot of the NorEast does it right. And ideally, that's where I'd like to land. But there's a lot that the NorEast does wrong too. And in general we really fucked up by not really being egalitarian with our urban planning or upkeep.
I am still baffled as to how you can be somewhere with humans and it's absurd to be "walking" and it's a common thing across America in a lot of places. And try crossing a highway on foot. It's a nightmare that you might not even know you're heading towards until you get there. Bugs me out.