Why Houston’s Urban Planning is Better Than London’s
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มี.ค. 2024
- London can't compare to Houston! Freedom is at stake!
Sign up to squarespace for 10% off! squarespace.com/evanedinger
Vlog channel / evanedinger
Thank you so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it!
If you're new to my channel and videos, hi! I'm Evan Edinger, and I make weekly "comedy" videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I'm also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I'll see you next Sunday! :)
If you want to know HOW I make my videos including gear, lighting, all the tiddly bits that connect it all together, (with cheaper alternatives and kit I used to use), I've listed each item, what it's great at, and why I use it on the gear section of my website here:
www.evanedinger.com/blog/my-gear
Otherwise: here's a quick list of some of my kit without descriptions from the above link:
Camera: Sony A7siii
geni.us/Evana7siii
Main Lens: Sony 24mm f/1.4 G-Master
geni.us/Evan24
Secondary Lens: Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 G-Master
geni.us/Evan1635
Main Light: Aputure 120d mkii
geni.us/Evan120d
Shotgun Microphone: Sennheiser MKH-416
geni.us/Evan416
Really useful SSD: SanDisk Extreme Portable 2TB
geni.us/EvanPortSSD
The background music I use is all from Epidemic Sound! I highly recommend it: geni.us/EvanEpidemicSound
Store: (LUTs, Presets, & Prints) ► evanedinger.com/store
Patreon: / evanedinger
Second Channel: / evanedingertravel
Twitter: / evanedinger
Instagram: / evanedinger
Facebook: / evanedinger
Discord: / discord
Twitch:(4 days a week!) ► / evanedinger
That commenter spoke about bureaucracy… It is
Is there anything more drastic and "soviet level control" than the American HOA's rules?!! 😅😂😅
Here in The Netherlands they had the bright idea to delete the part of the building code that requires every apartment to have outside space such as a balcony. The argument was that market pressure would lead to a diversification of apartments, with cheaper ones having less outside space (or none), while more expensive ones would have balconies.
The reason the Council are demanding green roofs and underground parking is because the developers said that's what they would do. Of course they included something like a green roof so the planners will look favourably on the development. And then decided to ignore such things when they built the place. We have a planning system so developers can't stuff up everything. They can only stuff up the things the have permission for.
The air quality in London has really improved. I used to commute into London from rural Kent, (by train!) in the early 2000s, and everyday my nose would be filled with black stuff. It never happens when I visit London these days. Massive improvement.
The important part is they weren't being told how to do it,they were being told to do it how THEY SAID they would do it, thus adhering to their contract, either written or verbal.
Yes... in the US
I’m seventh generation Texan and native Houstonian. I’ve also traveled a lot, including Europe and of course, London. Houston is a hellhole compared to nearly everywhere I’ve visited in Europe. You don’t even need a car to get by day to day in most big cities over there. There is no comparison.
The thing I'd say to those comparing the size of Houston to London is that they're missing a big point of the city planning. If you compare the Houston metro area and the London metro area, the population is half. 7m in Houston metro area, 14 million in London metro area. Yet, the Houston metro area is more than 10,000 square miles to London's 3300 square miles. The better urban planning means people don't need to travel so far. They don't need to make awkward 2 hour journeys hopping from train to bus to underground etc... Because the planning has meant that things people need to get to are easy to get to and are nearby!
All of these "the market should regulate itself" people don't realise that "the market" would very gladly turn them into soylent green and sell them to the remaining humans if it meant making even the littlest of profits.
Evan, thank you so much for caring about the access needs of the disabled community!! I am a semi-ambulatory wheelchair user, and when I'm not using a wheelchair to get around, I use a walker. It's quite shocking how little some people care about those of us in the disabled community being able to get around and have access to any and all public spaces!
Houston paid a huge price for not keeping developers from building in flood plains.
Being someone who lives in the US, I absolutely agree with you that living somewhere where a car is not a necessity would be amazing. In fact, I plan on doing so in a few years. It's not in the US, because there are not many places here where that is possible. I also hate living in a big city personally.
About owning a car in London - a friend of mine lived there for many years and owned a car but it frequently happened that when he wanted to use the car, the battery had gone dead cause he used it so rarely and the main reason was that for most thing it was way quicker and more convenient to use the underground.
I once went to a physics conference in Houston. The conference centre was about 1km from the hotel. The only people we saw walking to the hotel were road workers, policemen and European academics.
This is down to the developer cutting corners. He probably saved a million pounds or so by making tweaks to the original, approved design and hoped that nobody would notice.
I genuinely don't understand why so many people on this side of the pond behave as if they're allergic to public transport. I grew up in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada, and I never bothered to take my road test and get a car because I could get anywhere I needed to go. In my early 20s I worked a 5 minute walk away from my house and there were buses stopping in front of work every 15 minutes that would quickly connect me to transport hubs in 2 different direction, into Langley city or into the heart of Surrey. From the hub in Surrey I could hop on the SkyTrain and be anywhere in the Vancouver area in under an hour, and from Langley I could catch a different bus system and get closer to the mountains. Then I moved to Newfoundland. Now I need a car.
The thing about the journey between Epsom and Watford Junction isn't even true. You can get a train from Epsom to Clapham Junction (CLJ) on either Southern or Southwestern, and then a train from Clapham Junction to Waford Junction on Southern or the Overground (which would involve a transfer at Willesden Junction). That takes around an hour and half in total.
As a Londoner with a car - I can say my car sometimes sits in my underground car park for a month or more without me needing it. I used to rent cars until they got outrageously expensive! My insurance/MOT costs are cheaper than renting cars for the times I need my car now (my car was a bargain bought from a friend as well). It's definitely a luxury though, I don't NEED the car, but it's much easier for me when I visit family (my mum used to live in the countryside with no public transport so I needed a car to see her - or she'd have to pick me up at a train station miles away)
Surely the fellow from Houston who commented (i m assuming here) would agree that we should keep people to their word. The issue here is not that these buildings do not have a green roof or only provide above ground parking. The issue is the developers were granted huge exemptions to the planning rules (notably on the amount of floor area they were allowed to develop) based on a promise that they chose to make to give back that public space in some other way. Actually imho green roofs on highrise roofs are nonsense, it s just bullshit used to sell schemes to laymen. But the issue is the developers broke their word and their contract with the community. They should be made accountable because that s exactly why we elect a government: to protect us from conmen and liars. I'm sure when that person orders a delivery meal in a restaurant and pays for a burger with beef, cheese and lettuce, they wouldn t be happy to receive just bread and beef. Doesn t make them a soviet dictator