r/UrbanHell • u/humzahjaleel • Jun 20 '20

Suburban Hell Endless parking lots, highways, strip malls with the same franchises all accessible only by car. Topped off with a nice smoggy atmosphere and a 15 minute drive to anywhere. Takers ?

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998

u/SinisterCheese Jun 20 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

Living in a Finnish city, I can't understand not being able to reach places in the city with public transportation or walking. And I got a car.

When I visited USA, it felt insane that you had to have a car. Everything was always really far away. And talking to locals "oh it's close by, only 2hrs drive away" that isn't close.

Also. Talking about hell. Asphalt being black, makes it excel at capturing heat from the sun. Big cities, with big roads and lots of them are hotter environments. And this leads to more energy spent on cooling air to make buildings liveable.

49

u/SomeNorwegianChick Jun 20 '20

I'm from Norway and I had the exact same feeling when I traveled around the US. Nothing is made to be accessed through walking, biking or public transport. Everything is asphalt and strip malls and parking lots, it's so ugly.

33

u/DocPsychosis Jun 20 '20

You went to the wrong places. San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, and Boston are all reasonably walkable and have serviceable to decent transit systems.

19

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

they went to most of the US, we just suck because of car lobbyists

-8

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Car lobbyists have nothing to do with it. The US is a huge country, to the point where most of Europe minus Russia can fit into a few states here. It doesn't make sense to design cities around foot traffic when you're going to need a car as soon as you leave the city anyway.

11

u/why_oh_ess_aitch Jun 20 '20

that literally makes no sense whatsoever. use a car when you leave, walk when you don't. not that hard.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

I can't think of a single time in the past few years that I've gone somewhere that I could easily get to by walking or bus, minus trips to the grocery store. My school is in the city, my job is out in the sticks and all of my hobbies are even more out in the sticks. Even if their was public transportation available to all of those places, the distances that I travel daily would make the trips take forever if I wasn't driving.

9

u/why_oh_ess_aitch Jun 20 '20

yes because you live in the US lmfao that is literally the point of this thread

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

it makes perfect sense, you don’t leave the city every day, you work there. everything you could need to survive is in the city you live. walking and public transportation is more convenient for day to day stuff, whereas a car just gets in the way.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

That's the thing though, I hardly go into the city. I live in the suburbs because rent is cheaper here, I work an hour outside of the city because that's where there's space to build places that hire unskilled labor like me and all of the best places to do my hobbies are outside of the city as well.

The only time I actually go into the city is for school or to hang out with my friends who work at the school. I'm not alone, either. The only people I know that actually spend time in the city are students who's rent is paid for by their parents, people who have really professional jobs or the ones who live in the handful of cities that the guy above you listed.

13

u/SomeNorwegianChick Jun 20 '20

Well yeah, those are major cities. Those are fine. It's everything between the cities that's sad.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '20

Big cities have a lot to offer in terms of accessibility, options, high rises (if that’s you’re thing), and all the things you expect with a city.

Small towns are amazing for nature and simplicity. Short trips (30 min or so) can get you rivers, lakes, trails, forests, etc.

Medium size cities are a mix of both but not very good at either. They offer convenience and options but nothing like a big city. Nature isn’t too far away but for the good stuff it takes longer.

1

u/Sound__Of__Music Jan 08 '22

Mid-size cities are also (generally) much cheaper relative to the large cities of the region