Society The problem with North American cities

Maciamo

Maciamo

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It's a well-known fact that city is in the US and Canada are very car-centric. But what does that mean exactly and why is that a bad thing? Here are several videos that explain very well why life in such cities is much less pleasant, less convenient, more time consuming, and even more dangerous (due to an increase incidence of road accidents).

The first problem is the so-called "stroads" (a combination of street and road).


The second reason are the extremely restrictive residential zoning laws in North America, which prevent the development of mixed use neighbourhoods.


One person posted this comment on YouTube, which got 9200 likes (so far).

"Once, I visited relatives in the US for a few days. They lived less than 1 km away from a mall, so I decided to walk there. It was a terrible idea! There were no sidewalks or pedestrian crossing points, making it physically dangerous to walk there. So, no mall for me. For a few days, I started to walk the neighborhood to get to know it, but a police car stopped me because someone called 911 about a suspicious guy walking around (me). What made me suspicious is that I was walking!"

This is exactly what Bill Bryson, a popular American travel writer who sold millions of books, explains in one of his books travelling around the USA. He has spent most of his adult life in Britain and was shocked when he went back to the US and try to walk from one shop to the next on a stroad, only to discover that there was no pavement (sidewalk) at all and that it would be nearly impossible to get there without a car as it would involve walking directly on a busy road.

Personally, I have travelled extensively over 50 countries and all continents and the only city I have ever seen outside North America designed like this was Canberra in Australia. The Aussie capital was developed mostly in the 1950s and 60s, exactly the period when urban planners were designing cities mostly for cars. It was over 20 years ago but I vividly remember that it was impossible to get from one part of the city to the other without passing through a long tunnel made only for cars. I was the only pedestrian attempting that, but I didn't really have a choice.
 
A third problem in North America is the increased popularity of SUV and light trucks which now make 80% of new vehicle sales. I have never liked light trucks and pickup trucks because I find them ugly, but that's not the case of SUV. However I did not realise just how bad both of them were. This video explains it perfectly. I'm not surprised it's one of the most popular videos on the channel with 300k likes. It's an absolute must watch video, especially for Americans.

 
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I currently drive a 2023 Buick Enclave Aviner, because we are seeking to expand the size of our family with another child. But also because we go for long road trips to Canada and back. As well as for groceries, and other items. It can hold a payload of about 1800 lbs, and I've been transporting building materials for our paver project in the backyard.

It costs about $75 a week in gas, $180 in tolls every three weeks, $650 in monthly lease, and $2000 a year in insurance.

I despise this existence, with this stupid vehicle, yet, I am compelled by circumstance to lease it. I won't get too deep into that, but that's my current reality.

I used to drive Toyotas when I was a single man, with no family, and I loved them. I don't care if they are flashy or not, they're great on gas, and reliable.

I am seeking for our next vehicle to be an electric car. I resent the idea of paying so much for gasoline. Paying all of this money like an idiot, needlessly.

Hopefully by then, the range of which it can travel will be at least 750-1000 miles on a single charge, for my purposes. That or more rapid charging capabilities.
 
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Jovialis said:
I currently drive a 2023 Buick Enclave Aviner, because we are seeking to expand the size of our family with another child. But also because we go for long road trips to Canada and back. As well as for groceries, and other items. It can hold a payload of about 1800 lbs, and I've been transporting building materials for our paver project in the backyard.

It costs about $75 a week in gas, $180 in tolls every three weeks, $650 in monthly lease, and $2000 a year in insurance.

I despise this existence, with this stupid vehicle, yet, I am compelled by circumstance to lease it. I won't get too deep into that, but that's my current reality.

I used to drive Toyotas when I was a single man, with no family, and I loved them. I don't care if they are flashy or not, they're great on gas, and reliable.

I am seeking for our next vehicle to be an electric car. I resent the idea of paying so much for gasoline. Paying all of this money like an idiot, needlessly.

Hopefully by then, the range of which it can travel will be at least 750-1000 miles on a single charge, for my purposes. That or more rapid charging capabilities.
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I checked the consumption of the Buick Enclave Avenir and it guzzles up 12 liters per 100 km (19.6 miles per US gallon). That's huge. I don't know any car in Europe that consumes so much, even among SUVs. Until 2 years ago I had a BMW Gran Tourer. It's official consumption is 6.2 litres per 100 km (mixed city and highway), but the way I drove I was between 5 and 5.5 litres. Both cars have similar trunk capacity. The Enclave Avenir's is 23.6 cubic feet (668 litres) while the Gran Tourer is only slightly less at 22.7 cubic feet (645 litres).

It's not even necessary to get an electric car if you are worried about travel range or charging speed. The best compromise at the moment is a hybrid car. Most new models of European hybrid cars (including the new BMW Gran Tourer hybrid) only consume about 2 litres per 100 km, about six times less than your car.

I'm not sure if car insurance is more expensive in the US and than here, but I used to pay about 400€ a year for that car, about five times less than you.
 
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An American friend of mine recently bought a Toyota RAV4 hybrid which is similar in size to the Buick Enclave Aviner but has a significantly lower fuel consumption (about 6.5l, depending on your driving style). Fuel consumption (and reliability issues) is precisely the reason why US cars were never popular in Europe with the sole exception of Ford. But even the Fords on European roads are basically European/German cars.

The increase in SUVs in European cities is worrying and future conflicts regarding space are guaranteed. Too many of them are becoming a problem for our cities because our roads are narrower and parking space is scarce. They are also a security hazard for passengers and especially children. SUVs are ok if you live in the mountains or in the country and own your own house but you don't need a big fat SUV like the Volvo XC90 in a densely populated city with excellent public transport. I'm taking my hometown Vienna as an example because we have the best public transport system in the world, yet our streets are crowded with these unnecessary SUV tanks. A while ago, if you had a larger family or would transport stuff on a regular basis, you would buy a so-called kombi or station wagon for our American friends.

Like Maciamo said, you don't have to buy an electric car to save on gasoline. Just get yourself a reasonably good hybrid like the Toyota RAV4. The convenience of charging an electric car depends on the local infrastructure and electricity costs. They are only a better option if you drive a car with such a ridiculous fuel consumption. And what you'd save on gasoline would go up in maintenance costs if you go for an EV.
 
The North American model of car-centric suburbia is a huge strain on the cities' finances. That's why many American cities are broke. This series of videos explains very well the problem and how to solve it.





It's interesting that New York city is the most touristic city in the US and generally the city considered to be the best in the country, but it is also the most European in its layout (no sprawling suburbia), construction style (brick and mortar instead of prefab or wooden houses) and infrastructure (metro, parks). Well maybe not the skyscrapers of Central Manhattan, but the townhouses of Brooklyn and Queen are very similar to those in Brussels or London. It's also true of townhouses in Washington DC, Philadelphia and Boston. These cities are exceptions within the US and they tend to attract wealthier people too. Washington DC is the city with the highest percentage of millionaires in the US (9% of the population), followed by New York City (5%).

Personally I like the aesthetic of North American suburbia, at least in wealthier neighbourhoods. I can understand the attraction of such places. I am sensitive to noise so living in a residential neighbourhood in a cul-de-sac where the houses are well spaced out sounds pretty good. The main problem is that these residential neighbourhoods tend to sprawl endlessly instead of being built around commercial streets. The guy from Not Just Bikes recommends higher density housing in a mixed-use neighbourhood like in European city centres. But there is an alternative solution too. You could have American style residential neighbourhoods with single family homes build around higher density shopping streets. The idea would be to build lots of small towns in the suburbs instead of one huge sterile suburbia.
 
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The urban centers of the US are a basket case because of crime, pollution, and general municipal incompetence, which is why wealthy people typically want to move away but remain close enough to high-income jobs. They also don't want to pay the high taxes of living in the city. This results in a preference for living in the suburbs and driving or commuting to work. Nevertheless, even if they commute, they need a car to facilitate their domestic life.

I go into NYC often, and while there are nice areas with high culture, there are also polluted areas with vagrants, drug addicts, and psychotic malcontents. I know very progressive-minded people who live there and are afraid of using the subway system because of repeat offenders who harass people. After visiting Japan and seeing a city like Tokyo, I reject the idea that these issues are just an inevitable consequence of large urban living. Rather, I think they are a consequence of political machines that feel their electoral victory is guaranteed, thus feeling no real responsibility for their failed policies.

Moreover, these political entities likely do not want to attract families or create family-oriented communities. Instead, they prefer dual-high-income households without children as a tax base, who will not utilize public services or desire a quality education system. Frankly, I believe this is the political and corporate motivation behind the large emphasis on LGBTQ+ advocacy, as well as the construction of dog parks rather than playgrounds for children. They prefer to maintain a large underclass that will always vote for them based on entitlements and racial identity politics.

Thus, cities in the United States are suboptimal for raising a family unless you are wealthy enough to be insulated from the underclass and can send your children to private schools. Most big partners and elites who work in the city typically live in the suburbs because they are smart and frugal enough to avoid living in the aforementioned conditions. Moreover, they generally do not have to go into the office as much as lower-level employees.
 
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I also have to say, after seeing a beautiful city like Bruges in Belgium, I feel an even greater sense of despair for US cities.
 
Jovialis said:
The urban centers of the US are a basket case because of crime, pollution, and general municipal incompetence, which is why wealthy people typically want to move away but remain close enough to high-income jobs. They also don't want to pay the high taxes of living in the city. This results in a preference for living in the suburbs and driving or commuting to work. Nevertheless, even if they commute, they need a car to facilitate their domestic life.

I go into NYC often, and while there are nice areas with high culture, there are also polluted areas with vagrants, drug addicts, and psychotic malcontents. I know very progressive-minded people who live there and are afraid of using the subway system because of repeat offenders who harass people. After visiting Japan and seeing a city like Tokyo, I reject the idea that these issues are just an inevitable consequence of large urban living. Rather, I think they are a consequence of political machines that feel their electoral victory is guaranteed, thus feeling no real responsibility for their failed policies.

Moreover, these political entities likely do not want to attract families or create family-oriented communities. Instead, they prefer dual-high-income households without children as a tax base, who will not utilize public services or desire a quality education system. Frankly, I believe this is the political and corporate motivation behind the large emphasis on LGBTQ+ advocacy, as well as the construction of dog parks rather than playgrounds for children. They prefer to maintain a large underclass that will always vote for them based on entitlements and racial identity politics.

Thus, cities in the United States are suboptimal for raising a family unless you are wealthy enough to be insulated from the underclass and can send your children to private schools. Most big partners and elites who work in the city typically live in the suburbs because they are smart and frugal enough to avoid living in the aforementioned conditions. Moreover, they generally do not have to go into the office as much as lower-level employees.
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All these problems were allowed to develop because large family homes were built in huge residential suburbs cut off from the city for anyone who doesn't own a car. That left the poorer underclass in the city centres, thus concentrating all the societal problems in city centers.

There are also bad neighbourhoods in European cities, but the separation is not necessarily between city centre and suburbs. For example in London the division is more wealthy west (Westminster, Kensington, Wimbledon, Kingston) vs poorer east. In Brussels wealthy neighbourhoods are in the south and east, while the poorest ghettos are in the north and north-west. In Paris most of the city centre is relatively to very wealthy, and suburbs range from very wealthy (south and west) to very poor (north).

This demonstrates that city centers don't have to be abandoned to the underclass. Actually New York is a good proof of this as the city centre (Manhattan, even if it is geographically in the west) is the richest and most expensive part of the city. Once again NYC is more like Europe than like other American cities.
 
Here is another very well made video about the different zoning regulations between the US and Germany — although in this case the regulations are very similar across Europe.

The essential problem with R1 zoning in the US is that it only allows for single family homes and prohibits the presence of any small shop or business, which are considered essential to a neighbourhood for Europeans such as a bakery, a café, a pharmacy, or a kindergarten. It's ironic that zoning regulations in the US were originally intended to keep house prices higher by preventing the construction of factories or big commercial buildings in residential areas, but by overdoing it they created sterile neighbourhoods where Europeans generally wouldn't want to live. I'm pretty sure that relaxing a bit the regulations to allow for small neighbourhood shops would actually increase the real estate value of such neighbourhoods.

 
It might sound counterintuitive that fire departments are getting people killed in the US, but this video demonstrate it perfectly. I had no idea what he was referring to before watching the video, but it's so blindingly obvious once you have watched it.


That may explain why 4 or 5 times more Americans are dying in fires (per capita) than in countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain or even Australia.

But it's not just people dying in fires. American fire departments are responsible for vetoing safer street designs like roundabouts and protected bicycle lanes, that would actually speed up emergency services and cause less accidents.
 
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Maciamo said:
The Economist has published two articles this week about the problem of huge American cars.

What to do about America’s killer cars​

The country’s roads are nearly twice as dangerous as the rich-world average. It doesn’t have to be that way

America’s love affair with big cars is killing them​

New analysis shows that the heaviest vehicles kill more people than they save in crashes.
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I have this issue on my coffee table actually, and I was reminded of your threads on the topic.

Btw, I think I'm going to lease a hybrid Rav-4 or Highlander next. I'm going to see if the Toyota dealership can buy out my lease from Buick.
 
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