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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29564 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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I think this line of argument gets into the issue that a lot of people driving cars in cities (probably the vast majority) do so because they are employed in the city yet live in the suburbs dozens of miles away. Which is kind of an intractable problem unless capping the density of commercial real estate (or ratio of commercial to residential) is on the table.

That's what park and rides are for. Everyone parks at the outside of an urban core. Then walk, commute, bike into the urban core.

Which is nice until your car is stolen. There’s a nice little train to a neighboring city I want to take my kids on, but theft at the parking lot for it is too high, so we drive an hour instead.

If we're fantasizing about remaking the fabric of urban America we can fantasize about effective law enforcement.

Order of operations is important in discussions like this. If you are a bicycle urban enthusiast, you should be 100x a police enthusiast. In fact, the idea of posting about bikes shouldn't even cross your mind until you get called a racist and a classicist hundreds of thousands of times because of your Draconian (by today's standards) policing proposals.

If not, you are unserious.

If you are a bicycle urban enthusiast, you should be 100x a police enthusiast.

Unfortunately, in many places, the cops absolutely hate bicyclists, so this is unreasonable.

I guess?

My main experience of an American city with respectable public transport is Chicago. On the one hand, I took the metra and L a lot, and mostly liked them. On the other hand, locals had very strong opinions and advice about where it was and wasn't safe to bike/walk/park/stop at stop signs, which effects functionality a fair bit. I ended up parking at a relative's private apartment garage because he wasn't using it, but it was kind of a fluke that was was an option.

I empathize. America's urban problems need to be addressed whole sale. Generally, a large parking lot is easy to secure. A few cameras + security and you're set.

Thing is, I have absolutely no confidence the crime problem will ever be dealt with, and so all of my views on urban and transport policy are shaped by my desire to do everything possible to insulate myself from the failures of urban policy. My ideal is actually much more public transit, but only if it’s clean, safe, and efficient.

I don’t like cycling, but I’m more than warm to making more opportunities for people to cycle if they wish.

Issue is, in America the people who like reduced-car transport and the people who like tackling crime are almost entirely separate circles. Convince the Democrats to tackle urban crime, then we can have discussions about tackling car culture. Until then, I will continue resisting attempts to restrict the freedom and safety afforded to me by my automobile as an attempt to expose me to risks to life and property, and respond accordingly.

The war isn’t between you and me, but between you and the one-party states that rule America’s cities.

Unfortunate, but fair. The west city crime/homelessness problem is the biggest self-own. LA, SF, Portland and Seattle stand out. But there is no crime problem on the east coast. Urban areas of DC, Boston and NYC are very safe. Safer than most nice suburbs in the US. Not much homelessness either.

I haven't been to non-coastal American cities....so won't offer my opinion there.

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