Some decades ago, I read a short fantasy, where the author wondered if aliens were observing us and were only able to pick out objects of a certain size, they might think that the animate beings that inhabited our cities were in fact cars.
Was he wrong? When you use maximum enlargement on a Google map, parked cars are quite visible, but I have yet to see a human being.
For many people, cars have become emotional support exoskeletons. They shield people from fear of contact with unsavory others and, increasingly, from harm by other cars in the arms race of vehicle bloat. They also serve as a means of self-expression, sometimes amplifying the personality of the owner. Finally, they provide storage space for sports equipment and other property used primarily outside the home.
For those reasons, I am deeply skeptical of predictions that fleets of autonomous vehicles will someday make car ownership obsolete. After several Waymo rides, I'm persuaded the company offers a good taxi service, but it's still just a taxi service that I would use only in limited situations in which a taxi is the best option. For daily transport, I still prefer public transit when feasible, and people who would rather drive are likely to maintain that preference.
On another note, It's interesting how many people confuse "crowded" with "congested." People will complain that their exurban town is becoming "too crowded" because they have to wait multiple cycles at a traffic signal. That might happen less often if their towns were actually more crowded (in the sense of density) because fewer vehicles traveling fewer miles would likely lead to less congested roads.
Addison, you are probably familiar with this. This is a video of how the newly established FHA heavily encouraged the building of car centric suburbs in 1938! You get to actually see the brochure that told developers that that grids were bad. The real estate capitalists did not cook this up themselves.
I use that as a definition for a suburb. A suburb is a place where having a car makes it easier to get around, not harder. A city is a place where having a car makes it harder to get around, not easier
This is surprisingly the case in fairly dense places also - such as Annapolis which is ~5500 people/sq mi - that is a result of the place maturing physically quicker than it has culturally. I have some older friends here (70s) that are leaving because they can't stand the traffic "these days". This is a reaction to it being different from their past lived experience, where to me who has been here only 25 years (instead of 50) it feels just the same as it's always been. The biggest pushback we get (I am a Planning Commission member) with virtually *any* development (either buildings or even proposed pocket parks!) is "PARKING!" or "TRAFFIC!". It's often just a dog whistle for not wanting more people.
This is a big aspect of the "Good Party/Bad Party" analogy that Strong Towns uses. In this case, a "Good Party" is one where everybody who comes brings something, potluck style, meaning that more people means more variety. A city built like a "Good Party" just gets better with more people, since it creates new business opportunities and markets. And if built around things like public transit and flexible building policies, the extra people aren't a burden, and can even make those things more efficient. In fancy speak, the benefits in that kind of city are non-exclusive, meaning that resources don't necessarily run out as people come, and can even be expanded.
By comparison, the modern suburb is a "Bad Party", where only the host provides food and drinks, and so they run out quicker if there are more folks. For a suburb, car dependance is an exclusive good, which only gets bogged down by more people, since roads get congested very easily. In these places, there's strong pressure to keep people out because the system isn't built for them. As a result, things get lowest common denominator really quickly since opportunities are inherently limited. It ends up being desperation economics, which is why things feel so fragile these days.
That's really my point, the place like I describe is really a good party as it is a city with a productive development pattern, yet people who have been there for a long time don't see it that way.
I'm not seeing this one. I don't get the sense that most car-dependent suburbs have traffic congestion problems, precisely *because* they prioritize traffic mitigation over other interests. That's a problem you might see in the first ring of suburbs out from the city but not in the ones further out. (Some of the main thoroughfares in the city I live in have 2 lanes in each direction. The main road in the suburb I grew up in has 3 lanes in each direction... You will never get stuck in traffic there.)
Are objections about traffic often the obstacle to building more housing in suburbia? An empirical question - I don't know the answer. But it strikes me that's also a concern more likely to be raised in the close-in ring where new proposed new housing is likely to increase the density and not further-out suburbia, where the type of housing they allow to be built (think single-family 4-BRs with two-car garages) are not going to contribute much to traffic. If anyone's blocking development in those places I might think them more likely to be talking about school capacity or open space for its own sake than about traffic. But how much demand for development is there in those places, anyway?
I'm not sure I can answer your question, but I hate driving in suburbs. Something about all the traffic lights, long distances, lack of options for routes to get somewhere, and all the driving to get in and out of complicated parking lots. Yuck.
I find it much more pleasant to drive in the grid where I live. It's mostly residential, but with commercial corridors.
The NIBMYs in my neighborhood are worried about an increase in traffic that could come with building more housing, but I don't know about the debates in suburbia. I get the impression that out there it's more about getting the wrong kind of people, but perhaps I just hear the worst of it.
In support of your "people becoming cars" point, cyclists and Pedestrians say "a truck veered into my lane" rather than refer to the driver. In part, it's a shorthand way to avoid saying "a driver in a truck", but it goes deeper than that. It almost seems like when people say this, they're positing a sort of "human-car" melding.
On a similar note, when driving, you may say things at another car that you would never say at another person. I think this is where a lot of road rage comes from.
Some decades ago, I read a short fantasy, where the author wondered if aliens were observing us and were only able to pick out objects of a certain size, they might think that the animate beings that inhabited our cities were in fact cars.
Was he wrong? When you use maximum enlargement on a Google map, parked cars are quite visible, but I have yet to see a human being.
The National Film Board of Canada made a cartoon back in the 1960’s that did exactly this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFaHArkYLsM
I just got a "video not available" message. I'd love to see it.
https://youtu.be/G2r7YoyKDiM?si=D-OXN_2vUMpFlkSD
Very entertaining!
Google “NFB car aliens”
For many people, cars have become emotional support exoskeletons. They shield people from fear of contact with unsavory others and, increasingly, from harm by other cars in the arms race of vehicle bloat. They also serve as a means of self-expression, sometimes amplifying the personality of the owner. Finally, they provide storage space for sports equipment and other property used primarily outside the home.
For those reasons, I am deeply skeptical of predictions that fleets of autonomous vehicles will someday make car ownership obsolete. After several Waymo rides, I'm persuaded the company offers a good taxi service, but it's still just a taxi service that I would use only in limited situations in which a taxi is the best option. For daily transport, I still prefer public transit when feasible, and people who would rather drive are likely to maintain that preference.
On another note, It's interesting how many people confuse "crowded" with "congested." People will complain that their exurban town is becoming "too crowded" because they have to wait multiple cycles at a traffic signal. That might happen less often if their towns were actually more crowded (in the sense of density) because fewer vehicles traveling fewer miles would likely lead to less congested roads.
Addison, you are probably familiar with this. This is a video of how the newly established FHA heavily encouraged the building of car centric suburbs in 1938! You get to actually see the brochure that told developers that that grids were bad. The real estate capitalists did not cook this up themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVwBuMX2mD8
I use that as a definition for a suburb. A suburb is a place where having a car makes it easier to get around, not harder. A city is a place where having a car makes it harder to get around, not easier
This is surprisingly the case in fairly dense places also - such as Annapolis which is ~5500 people/sq mi - that is a result of the place maturing physically quicker than it has culturally. I have some older friends here (70s) that are leaving because they can't stand the traffic "these days". This is a reaction to it being different from their past lived experience, where to me who has been here only 25 years (instead of 50) it feels just the same as it's always been. The biggest pushback we get (I am a Planning Commission member) with virtually *any* development (either buildings or even proposed pocket parks!) is "PARKING!" or "TRAFFIC!". It's often just a dog whistle for not wanting more people.
This is a big aspect of the "Good Party/Bad Party" analogy that Strong Towns uses. In this case, a "Good Party" is one where everybody who comes brings something, potluck style, meaning that more people means more variety. A city built like a "Good Party" just gets better with more people, since it creates new business opportunities and markets. And if built around things like public transit and flexible building policies, the extra people aren't a burden, and can even make those things more efficient. In fancy speak, the benefits in that kind of city are non-exclusive, meaning that resources don't necessarily run out as people come, and can even be expanded.
By comparison, the modern suburb is a "Bad Party", where only the host provides food and drinks, and so they run out quicker if there are more folks. For a suburb, car dependance is an exclusive good, which only gets bogged down by more people, since roads get congested very easily. In these places, there's strong pressure to keep people out because the system isn't built for them. As a result, things get lowest common denominator really quickly since opportunities are inherently limited. It ends up being desperation economics, which is why things feel so fragile these days.
That's really my point, the place like I describe is really a good party as it is a city with a productive development pattern, yet people who have been there for a long time don't see it that way.
I'm not seeing this one. I don't get the sense that most car-dependent suburbs have traffic congestion problems, precisely *because* they prioritize traffic mitigation over other interests. That's a problem you might see in the first ring of suburbs out from the city but not in the ones further out. (Some of the main thoroughfares in the city I live in have 2 lanes in each direction. The main road in the suburb I grew up in has 3 lanes in each direction... You will never get stuck in traffic there.)
Are objections about traffic often the obstacle to building more housing in suburbia? An empirical question - I don't know the answer. But it strikes me that's also a concern more likely to be raised in the close-in ring where new proposed new housing is likely to increase the density and not further-out suburbia, where the type of housing they allow to be built (think single-family 4-BRs with two-car garages) are not going to contribute much to traffic. If anyone's blocking development in those places I might think them more likely to be talking about school capacity or open space for its own sake than about traffic. But how much demand for development is there in those places, anyway?
I'm not sure I can answer your question, but I hate driving in suburbs. Something about all the traffic lights, long distances, lack of options for routes to get somewhere, and all the driving to get in and out of complicated parking lots. Yuck.
I find it much more pleasant to drive in the grid where I live. It's mostly residential, but with commercial corridors.
The NIBMYs in my neighborhood are worried about an increase in traffic that could come with building more housing, but I don't know about the debates in suburbia. I get the impression that out there it's more about getting the wrong kind of people, but perhaps I just hear the worst of it.
This essay made me remember this ad I used to see on TV. Amazing that YouTube has preserved it for us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEzVc8Igps
Marshall McLuhan probably said it best.
In support of your "people becoming cars" point, cyclists and Pedestrians say "a truck veered into my lane" rather than refer to the driver. In part, it's a shorthand way to avoid saying "a driver in a truck", but it goes deeper than that. It almost seems like when people say this, they're positing a sort of "human-car" melding.
On a similar note, when driving, you may say things at another car that you would never say at another person. I think this is where a lot of road rage comes from.