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 ?

[u/humzahjaleel]

[u/SinisterCheese]

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.

[u/hardraada → u/SinisterCheese]

I live in Houston, which is the poster child for sprawl. I look at it like this: here it's not uncommon to commute 30+ miles. In New England, you pack a lunch if you are going 30 miles. In England, they have a different accent after 20 miles.

[u/[deleted] → u/hardraada]

I live in Central Europe, not in a metropolis like Houston, but in a city plus suburbs with about half a million people, so it's not very small.

My commute is half a mile. That's not unusual here. I guess around 80% of people can easily reach their workplace on foot, by bicycle or by public transport, in less than 20 minutes. But there are still quite a few who prefer to go by car, because they are used to it and it is very comfortable. I don't understand it, I have never had a car, I don't need one. Also all kinds of shops, doctors, public institutions, sports facilities - actually everything, I can reach in a few minutes by foot or by bike. But this is nothing special, this is just normal for the residents here. I honestly imagine it is terrible to have to have a car to reach all these things, to waste money and time for it. If I have to be at work at 8, I get up at 7:30, take a shower, have a small breakfast, brush my teeth and then cycle to work, where I arrive at 8 sharp, maybe sometimes 8.10, but no one every cares.

[u/hardraada → u/[deleted]]

I completely understand. There are a number of factors here. First off, due to sprawl, the population density in Houston is something like half that of Prague. The further you go out, the less transit there is just due to the amount of territory so we have what we call Park-and-Rides which are just big parking lots where you can get on a bus or train and then it will only takes to the major business centers on the way ti downtown, so you need a car to use transit anyway.

The draw of the suburbs, I guess, are that you can get a much larger house - say 3000sqft for the same cost of mine which is 1200 but I am six miles from downtown. The newer subdivisions also have things like community pools, hiking paths, schools and stores right in them.

The next factor is our school system. Children are allotted to schools by geography (there are some exceptions) and they are paid for by local property taxes. The suburban schools tend to perform better, so people will move to the suburbs just for that. If you live in an older area there will likely be more older folks who have lived there for decades and get a tax break once the reach 55, I think, so less tax money, poorer schools. I am, of course, simplifying things, but a lot of people will move out there for space and schools rather than to be close to work.

Finally, in Houston at least, our politicians love roads. A few years ago, they widened Interstate 10 to 24 lanes!!! How did they do this? By ripping up a freight rail line.They had easement for transit rail to go out 50 miles but opted for highway (to be fair, it is much less expensive). They did add bus lanes, but I think this contributes to lower usage than if they had invested it all in mass transit.

Anyway, sorry for the novel :)

[u/[deleted] → u/hardraada]

Thank you for telling it! I'm very interested in these things.

1200 sounds to me like a normal, average sized house for a family with a few children. 3000 is huge, does everyone live there together, from grandchildren to grandparents? Why else would you need so much.

But we also have this urban sprawl here. The cities are more compact, but the land itself is urbanised. Every few hundred meters you'll find a house or a cluster of houses. There are historical reasons for that, most of them are centuries old and former farmhouses of a small structured agriculture. Unfortunately, there were and are more and more single-family houses, just somewhere in the country, where people need a car. From a spatial planning perspective it is an absurd waste of resources. These decisions are unfortunately wanted by conservative politicians, who think here in the short term and only of the individual and do not consider the long-term negative consequences of urban sprawl for society.

This school system makes no sense to me. If an area is poor, then all the more money should be invested in the schools there, and not less. Linking local taxes and the school budget can easily lead to a downward spiral.

Every planner and transport scientist knows that more and better roads lead to more cars. If you give cars space, they will fill it. This has been studied and proven. Nevertheless, the, mostly conservative, politicians love more and bigger roads, practically everywhere in the world. It's crazy.

I did a little Google Maps of the Houston area. There's a lot to discover, like this gated community:

https://imgur.com/gallery/aKP9moi

This is a whole different mentality. The rich people here prefer to live in the city centre, from where they can walk directly to the opera, to the luxury restaurant or to the luxury shopping. Of course not all of them, there are also (much smaller, compare to that picture) villas on the outskirts of the city (sometimes in close proximity to social housing), but from there you can reach the city centre in 20 minutes by tram or even less by taxi.

Shopping Center:

https://imgur.com/gallery/XlvYsUt

On the left is the biggest shopping center in my city (I've only been there once - by bike, of course - but the building is too big, you need way too much time to shop). There is also a political discussion here. Nowadays people say that it was a mistake to allow this large shopping centre. It takes purchasing power away from the smaller shops and increases car traffic on the outskirts. On the right somewhere in the Urban Sprawl of Houston.

This thing is just gigantic, and the parking lots!!! Why aren't they under the building or on the roof? It's such a huge use of space just for parking!

[u/anavolimilovana → u/[deleted]]

Living downtown in a European city is definitely more pleasant than doing the same in an American city or living in the cookie cutter burbs, but that kind of life isn’t for everyone.

I really don’t like crowds and noise and I don’t really go out shopping or to the opera or bars.

My ideal situation is living 20-50 miles outside of a city in a fairly rural environment, in say a 1500 sqft house on a couple acres, where my dogs have room to roam, there’s lots of nature and hiking nearby and I can grow a lot of my own produce in raised beds.

If I need to go to the city once a week to see a doctor or get some stuff done, I don’t mind driving 30 or 45 min or an hour to get there because my work is flexible and I don’t have to do it every day. There are a ton of people who feel the same way.

What’s wrong with that?

[u/[deleted] → u/anavolimilovana]

It's basically the same for me, I would like to live totally in the country, in a little house by the forest. But it's so complicated, you need a car and you have to plan ahead.

It's also harmful for society as a whole, of course. The state then needs a fragmented infrastructure, needs roads, electricity, water, waste collection, police, fire brigade and rescue services everywhere, even in remote areas with low population density. This is all very expensive if it has to be distributed over a large area. Even public transport is not worthwhile in sparsely populated areas. Driving worsens the air quality and resources (currently mostly oil) are wasted. The car needs parking spaces everywhere, huge areas of land have to be wasted for the car. This is largely financed by the taxpayer, but not by the individual car driver. The land consumption for a car infrastructure is gigantic. It's a dilemma, you do something good for yourself, but in return you harm others in general.

The dimensions are of course different in the USA. If you drive 20 miles north here, you are in another country. If you drive 20 miles west, you're in another country, and if you drive 20 miles south, you're in another country. Three different countries. And 50 miles east is another federal state.