Thank you for this piece. I like the big idea, but it makes me think of something in my own neighborhood that troubles me. I live in an inner ring, former streetcar suburb; it’s really quite walkable, but the thing that disturbs me is that more and more frequently the business districts of town become suburbanized, in particular by new establishments built to accommodate on-site parking and drive-through service.
I know there were people that like having drive-through service, for instance those with young children. But tearing down traditional commercial structures and building new ones specifically designed to accommodate parking and drive-through services deteriorates the walkability of the neighborhood. So while these places aren’t for me and I rarely go there, they impact the quality of the everyone’s built environment, making it less walkable and less safe (more car-oriented).
Interesting future column idea: Why do some upper middle class areas stress new fancy cars as keys to people's identity and some areas (like Northern Virginia where I live) dont. Sure there are Teslas here, but generally people drive older boring cars that do not correspond to peoples income. Its an interesting difference from Miami, Las Vegas, LA and other places that emphasize new cars as keys to showing off status.
I feel like the answer might simply be “some places have a car culture and others don’t.” In the cases of LA/LV, car culture rules because of city design whereas Virginia is older than the car. I’m not very familiar with Virginia, but I would imagine the residents have other ways of showing wealth that are more specific to the culture. From your comment, I wonder if being well -off and driving a “normal” car is it’s own type of status signaling in the area?
Thank you for this piece. I like the big idea, but it makes me think of something in my own neighborhood that troubles me. I live in an inner ring, former streetcar suburb; it’s really quite walkable, but the thing that disturbs me is that more and more frequently the business districts of town become suburbanized, in particular by new establishments built to accommodate on-site parking and drive-through service.
I know there were people that like having drive-through service, for instance those with young children. But tearing down traditional commercial structures and building new ones specifically designed to accommodate parking and drive-through services deteriorates the walkability of the neighborhood. So while these places aren’t for me and I rarely go there, they impact the quality of the everyone’s built environment, making it less walkable and less safe (more car-oriented).
Interesting future column idea: Why do some upper middle class areas stress new fancy cars as keys to people's identity and some areas (like Northern Virginia where I live) dont. Sure there are Teslas here, but generally people drive older boring cars that do not correspond to peoples income. Its an interesting difference from Miami, Las Vegas, LA and other places that emphasize new cars as keys to showing off status.
I feel like the answer might simply be “some places have a car culture and others don’t.” In the cases of LA/LV, car culture rules because of city design whereas Virginia is older than the car. I’m not very familiar with Virginia, but I would imagine the residents have other ways of showing wealth that are more specific to the culture. From your comment, I wonder if being well -off and driving a “normal” car is it’s own type of status signaling in the area?
That seems right, except people spend a lot of time in traffic and in their cars here also.