It’s surprising how often I can actually bump into people that I know when I’m walking or biking around. Like other parents from my child’s school or coworkers.
I think people really underestimate how antisocial cars are and how much car centric design actually harms our communities
I’m definitely bad at striking conversations up with random people, so living somewhere that was walkable wasn’t as magical for me as it seems to be for a lot of people here in the comments, but I will say it was definitely better. I got out more, saw people more, just generally felt like I was actually doing thing instead of just moving between my bed and office like now.
same. i’m still an introverted awkward autistic weirdo and i’ve had just as much trouble making friends living in a city as anywhere else. but one of the things i like about living here is that even though i’m basically always alone, i’m also always around other people. it’s nice imo
I also found that I would often see the same people again and again, so it got to the point where maybe we wouldn’t really talk, but we’d nod/wave at each other and just generally felt like I was part of a community.
Causal connections make a world of difference. A smile and nod at scale can make you feel a part of a community, and it’s so much easier to pause for a conversation when you aren’t in a car
In the UK you do notice the difference between walking in a city and in a more community based area. People say good morning to you, sometimes even gasp make eye contact! It’s genuinely a bit jarring if you’ve been living in a high density area full of people who don’t often talk to each other. Even on the bus the difference is night and day, was always nice coming home from uni to hear people talking to strangers on the bus.
Places have a psychological impact on us, not surprised that a place that feels more communal encourages more community based behaviour.
I’ve been lucky enough to spend the last ten years of my life in walkable neighborhoods, and yes, they’re pretty glorious. People get to know you and your pets, and they watch out for your place when you’re not there, and you do the same for them.
The sense of community is palpable, and when your brain is broken like mine, it’s nice when people are kind to you.
I love these “shared” cats in our neighborhood. Go home pet friendly cat, chat with neighbour about cat being fat because other neighbors feed it (it is SIC so there is more of similar cats)…
Oh, hell yes.
In my old neighborhood the cats were Cheddar and Duke. Two big, regal boys who got love on whatever patio they decided to nap on a given day.
Koto was dechunked recently and all neighbors were instructed not to feed him.
But he still scares me when I am returning from pub and he jumps on car hood and wants pets.
Better give Koto his pets at least.
One has to respect their furry neighborhood kings.
Living in rural nowhere is a deeply depressing state of existence, more so when you can’t drive. I deeply wish I lived in a walkable city.
I don’t foresee cars ever becoming unnecessary, since that’s the only feasible way to get to work without being severely limited in your choice of employers, and having little or no choice of employer would be feudalism in all but name.
That said, work isn’t the only place you need to go. Neighborhoods ought to include shops, restaurants, and the like, too. Here in suburban Oregon, that is already the case, and it’s quite convenient to be able to walk over to the nearby grocery store whenever I need something.
It may be true for US but in Europe lots of cities have functional public transport and are dense, so you aren’t limited in any way. Lots of people use trains here to get to the city, where I currently live, to work. So their commute is about 50 km but with train it is 30 min.
Does that not limit you to only working at places that happen to be near a train station?
Well you could take the bus / tram / subway too.
Yes public transport is network not single lanes, when done right you get of the train and have already bus waiting for you. It is not easy to implement these connections but not impossible.
In cities with functional transit networks there are so many train stations that literally everything in the city is near a train station.
Well if transit network is robust enough to cover most kf the city instead of just a few routes, this is less of a problem.
I’d say that’s a very USA take; not having a car can lead to longer commute times, but it won’t severely curtail your job options. If the city has a decent public transportation network, many places will be within a 30 minute trip. If you extend that to 45 minutes, that can cover a significant amount of places.
The only person whose commute time I know off the top of my head right now commutes by car in 15~20 minutes, so 30~45 minutes is not great.
People spend far too much of their time working or commuting as it is. The last thing they need is even more commute time.
Well, its not like the six lane highways going in and out of cities like LA are void of traffic jams. Cars are not a real solution to lower commute time, especially since they take a lot of space, so cities need to be much wider, just holding streets for cars, instead of having the building closer together.
How do you deliver goods to and from a business inside a city, if not by truck? You still need streets for trucks.
Yeah, but for those trucks you can do with one or two lanes, where you would need 4 lanes otherwise to accomodate the car travel. In my country an average supermarket needs about 2 trucks a day to supply 5000 people. So thats 12 trucks a week or roughly 420 people supplied by a truckload. Assuming people to go to the supermarket once per week, and 2.5 people supplied per car, that is 168 cars for every truck. And a truck doesnt take more space on the road than maybe 4 cars.
So in our example, with favourable assumptions for cars (e.g. you’d expect grocery shopping a bit more often than once a week, and many household only have one or two people) you need 42 times the road space for the car traffic of the supermarket, compared to the truck traffic.
I live in an inner city in Europe. I have two supermarkets in 5 minutes walking distance, 4 supermarkets in 10 minutes walking distance, and another 3 just one trainstation away (also about 10 minutes door to door). There is no need for a car and the supermarkets do perfectly fine, with a small road connecting them.
Once I moved from the suburbs in MS to Seattle, I realized how many more friends I could make randomly. Our first night in the city we met someone and exchanged phone numbers. We’ve met a handful of people by just walking to the dog park too! Living in the city has done wonders for my mental health.
This is such a dream for me. Living in suburban hell has definitely impacted my mental health and overall health negatively.
Suburbs can be good depending on your neighborhood/community. It’s also not impossible to meet people, you might just have to find more group hobbies like sports/climbing/book clubs/dnd groups/etc…
It really depends but as a non-cis poc, I’d rather not take my chances after seeing some of the flags that my neighbors hang
Ooof that’s valid. Do you have a local community garden or theatre group? There will be supportive people hiding out in your community somewhere and I feel like those two things attract some fun, kind people.
I haven’t looked into it because I wasn’t able to find anything on Facebook and I stopped using that site already. Also, It’s so car-centric in our area that it takes a 25 minute walk to get to the nearest bus stop. I can’t even drive but I’m currently studying our state’s driving laws. I’m fairly new to the area and I’m not accustomed to American socialization
That’s a really rough spot to be in 😕 I hope you can find a sense of community and can pass your drivers course quickly.
That’s pretty wild, because it’s notoriously introverted up here and kind of a difficult city in which to make friends — for that still be better than the burbs is interesting to hear.
That’s pretty wild, because it’s notoriously introverted up here and kind of a difficult city in which to make friends — for that still be better than the burbs is interesting to hear.
It’s really not that introverted in the right crowds. I go to bars/breweries a lot. I also have a dog, and it’s really easy talking to people with her when going to dog parks/bars.
Online communities (like Beehaw!) are amazing, but IRL communities are so important for our mental health too, and those are deteriorating in our modern life. All over the world, people are more depressed than they’ve ever been.
I completely support the idea of making communities more safe and walkable. It feels impossible to tackle on a national level, but there’s a lot you can do locally. Get to know your local politicians and get involved.
Well. Would be nice, if before that was even considered, that you’re not afraid of getting shanked for your wallet everytime you walk out the door, walking at a brisk pace to wherever you need to go. Public safety needs to be improved before this kind of thing can be considered.
There are places in which this is very much a real concern, but it’s also a narrative I’ve heard my entire life about certain cities or areas of the city. I’ve often found that this is an exaggeration when compared to actual crime maps (and doubly so in the context of minority areas being over policed) and the experiences of people who live in these areas.
Do you live on 8 mile or something? I know not everywhere is super safe, but I feel like being afraid of being shanked for your wallet everytime you leave has more to do with your anxieties and mental health than it does the reality of wherever it is you live
You clearly do not know what third world countries are like.
Oh well the linked article is discussing a study done about America and other western developed nations. So I figured you were talking about your experiences in one of them and not a developing nation.
Growing up in the suburbs I was amazed at how different life felt in the city. Much more vibrant and full of socialization.
I live rurally now but I lived in a big city when I was younger and yeah I felt like a cog in a machine in the best way? It felt much more communal than my small community now so I think I’ve really been chasing that feeling. I think when we are physically more isolated it becomes easier to mentally isolate, especially when a lot of people are having to commute for work and coming home too exhausted for socialising. I really want a more robust public transport system as I think it encourages a connection between regular riders.
I feel like I can never find a single moment to myself living in a city and I hate it.
No shit, Sherlock.
While the results are obvious to most people, it’s important to do these sorts of studies and articles so people have somewhere to point when developers are pushing for more car centric infrastructure.
