Memes

I'm reluctant to litigate something unpopular on the internet for the purpose of collecting downvotes, and I think there's low probability we'll agree on the issue, but I'll explain my rationale:

I lived in NYC. NYC is not exactly designed for walking or bikes, but there's a strong case to be made that it has become a city in which cars are much less feasible than transit, walking, or biking. The sidewalks are all double-wide. If you order delivery, the delivery guy is on a bike. Nobody I knew owned a car, and none of us would have been able to afford the parking if we had. We walked to get groceries. It has subways, busses, and ferries that run very frequently. The subways run 24/7/365. In terms of density, NYC should be a best-case scenario for public transit.

The fact remains that if you wanted to LEAVE the city and go somewhere green with the ability to get away from people, it was 3x as long by public transit than it would have been by car. Minimum. And those places are far away. It's a place designed to keep you there. And that's just my point: I don't want to feel like a sardine in a city packed with people, I want to get out into nature where I can be the only person for miles around.

This is probably impossible in the Netherlands, which is 92% urban and has an average population density of 1/2 NYC across the entire country. By comparison, the US is 0.6% as densely populated as the Netherlands.

Amsterdam is the city I see cited most often as being the model for a /c/fuckcars-approved world, but my basic thesis is that living in a place with 13,670 people per square mile, greatly diminished personal space (densified housing), and greatly diminished personal autonomy (the ability to leave), is approximately my definition of urban hell.

I submit that the population of the Northeast Megalopolis (containing NYC, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore) is the stuff of dystopian hellscapes - FIFTY MILLION PEOPLE - and with an average population density of only 6.4% the density of the Netherlands (in other words, the same as Europe). It's really hard there to find land in its natural state, which isn't owned by someone - the best you can do is city parks or the equivalent. And while that's a matter of personal preference, I see a feverish, unrelenting push by the younger generations, who didn't grow up with cars-as-personal-freedom like the Boomers/GenX/Xennials did. In the US, young Millennials, gen Z, and beyond have decided that ultradense cities are great and cars are evil. I understand how they got to that conclusion, but to me it just looks like Eco-Austerity derived from urbanization, human overpopulation, and the lack of liberating personal-vehicular-experiences as a late teen and early adult.

Edit: When I was in high school, you could buy a well-used economy car that got 35mpg for $500-1k. Gas was a buck a gallon. Traveling 100+ miles to another state to explore rural areas with <1 person per SQ mile, for $3 in gas, all in a couple of hours was empowering. Being stuck in a manmade urban jungle is confining and I think people who lacked the opportunities I had will never understand.

Hell, I believe so much in personal vehicles and the autonomy they enable, I obtained a pilot's license -- something that is overwhelmingly difficult and expensive to do in overcrowded Europe, but for the time being still remains something you can achieve as a middle-class American in some places. I can go places far away without regard for transit schedules, routes, or finding hordes of people there when I arrive. It's a very non-European experience, and I prefer it to being just another person in an ocean of continuous human habitation.

Single-family homes vs densified housing is an adjacent topic, and I don't want to get too sidetracked, but suffice it to say that it was the yardstick of middle-class wealth in postwar America. To have your very own land and space, that was private, green, and notionally yours forever. And now thanks to perpetually ballooning city populations and demand for land in historically-occupied places forever outstripping supply, the younger generations are idolizing what amounts to apartment living. Personally, I couldn't get away from apartments fast enough once my income allowed it. I still don't know whether I'll ever own a house, but if I never share a wall or floor with someone again, it will be too soon. I'm frustrated by this newfound need to do away with the tools of our personal independence, and at some level, I fundamentally can't understand it. It frustrates me almost daily to run into anti-car, pro-urban zealots online, and I think they're misguided. They're all either mega extroverts, or don't have a clue what they're missing through lack of personal experience.

You almost wonder if these opinions are a product of very clever propaganda. "You will own nothing and you will be happy". No personal transportation, no public land, and rent an apartment forever to enrich corporate landlords. Stuck in the city, owning nothing of substance, with limited personal freedom because there are just too many people. Just more consumers for capitalism.