I was wondering if Not Just Bikes' older video was the inspiration for this one! Cool to see you guys doing a collab! Your 2 channels are some of my favorites!
Using The Netherlands as an example is nice and dandy and pleasantvillian, BUT it`s still a most car centric country regardless of how much bikelane/close-proximity and public transport it has. Also The Netherlands is one of the absolute key countries for helping bad companies keeping doing bad things, our climate impact may be bigger than the rest of Europe combined because of that. Not to mention delivering oil products to German factories. and absorbing the climate impacts for them.
biking through amsterdam while drunk or high (i expect is illegal... meh) is the absolute bomb and i challenge any suburban brad or karen to prove me wrong.
i moved to the japanese countryside 2 years ago, and one thing that's shocked me is how i still live in a walkable community while being in a super rural location. my town has about 2000 people and is surrounded by rice fields, but i still have a grocery store, post office, bank, 2 bars, a train station, etc. within a 10 minute walk. i don't have a car OR a bike, i live in the middle of nowhere and can still walk everywhere, it's awesome
Thats almost like Koknese. A town where I grove up. Main road besides highway was planted with big Oak trees. In thunderstorm the lightning would wreak havoc there.
As an Irishman, not having a pub within walkable distance would be a problem (it is in rural Ireland) because drink-driving is a major social and lawful no-no here.
@@DerekTJ It is definitely a no no in Australia - massive fines and a lot of random breath tests by police. But totally fair point about walking to the pub lol.
I’m a structural engineer, and I have designed a lot of buildings that contribute to sprawl. I don’t have any say in the form of a building itself (that is up to the architect), but I make sure buildings won’t fall down in the presence of wind, earthquakes, heavy snow, etc. In many ways, I feel like part of the problem in America‘s urban development. Your video gives me hope that America‘s urban development problem can be fixed by passionate, courageous people in the next generation. Thanks for putting the effort into research to educate viewers. I will look into attending a zoning meeting in my area of the midwest, US. Perhaps in this way I can make a difference.
As a Dutch person I would like to stress that, while we do let Jason live here, we do not in any way or form condone the concept of a bag of milk. This is 100% Canadian madness.
😂😂I bet you wanted to say something like this at the end of the meeting? At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Billy Madison : Okay, a simple "wrong" would've done just fine.
As someone from the Netherlands i could not believe there are places where you cannot just walk to a grocery store nearby and worse be completely dependant on a single mode of transport. That's insane. What if your car breaks down? You must beg to others or call a sevice on the spot wasting money and loads of time?
Oh no, this is America. In this land of opportunity, you can also starve. I mean you could bet on one of our many social safety nets catching your fall *Pause for laughter* ….and then feel free to add wishful thinking & prayer to your arsenal of things that won’t change the underlying problem. Yeah. We’re the richest country the world has ever seen. The US is leading the world in number of billionaires per capita [735 total as of 2020], Millionaires [21.95M as of 2020 - or 8.8% of US population], the worlds only Trillion dollar company [Apple, now a multi trillion dollar company], and bankruptcy & housing foreclosures caused by medical debt [62.1 & 56%, respectively - both from 2019, although I’m sure the pandemic helped both those numbers and access to social services] We also have crumbling infrastructure, an absolutely baffling lack of high speed rail, and access to mental health which can charitably be called “Piss poor.” Throw in a frankly disturbing need for a large percentage of my fellow countrymen to shout “We’re number 1” or “USA, USA, USA” like it’s an incantation to ward off intelligence, and a foreign policy best epitomized by a larger child punching a smaller child and ta-da, you’re just hero worship of the founding fathers away from being in the Good Ol’ U S of A. I am eager to see the day when the corporate sponsorship hits the next level of ironic honesty and we scrape off the words which no longer encapsulate who we are, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses….” to be summed up with, “Sell us those who will join in the commoditization of all life, and let the highest bidder dictate the terms for the rest.” But, in fairness, the last couple of years [Decades?] may have made me a touch cynical. Your mileage may vary. Cheers!
Your entire country is the size of a tiny state. Of course there are less places in the US where you can walk everywhere, but there are still plenty of places you can do that. However, owning your own car and having the ability to drive anywhere you want is a freedom that I severely missed when living in London and Paris. Europe made me feel powerless and trapped. Of course that's due to growing up in the states, but still.
So nice to see you young people well educated and conscious about these ridiculous issues and talking about it. You are the generation that could stop this non-sense.
Still can't walk or bus there, if so, expect 45 minutes to 2 hours to arrive.. and if walking? No need to go to that "out of business mall", you've already done all that walking halfway there. 😂😂😂
I remember buying a microwave oven soon after I moved to NYC and nearly dislocated my shoulder while bringing it home on the subway. I realized then that there is a limit to the amount of stuff people who live in cities can buy if they have to walk home with it. Unfortunately the car is very good for many retail.
yeah i live in a medium sized town and have seen some new 4-5 story apartment buildings which is good, but they are always “luxury” apartments yet very rushed at the same time
While we’re at it, let’s crack down on sound pollution period. Or at least enforce the damn law on noise violations; motorcycles with no mufflers; cars and trucks with modified exhaust systems designed to make them louder; and boom cars. I know that has nothing to do with your OP other than apartment dwellers also having very little insulation from outside/street noise, as well.
dunno where you live but here in Slovakia, every new apartment has soundproof walls... its not super fancy tech, its just bit different concrete.... you still hear noisy neighbors but way more muted.... oh, and its not even a regulation, its just modern way to build buildings so i wouldnt worry about that
This video got me to start a Strong Towns chapter in my area. We’re campaigning to reform zoning to a form based code, and fight for pedestrian safety across southern NH. Thanks rolls
A river never runs a straight path for a reason. It curves back and forth to balance a math equation. To create an equilibrium. The river is naturally making itself longer, to find a equilibrium. Just like we need to build homes "longer" apart. But not too far apart. Building too densely creates the rent trap and creates dependents on public transportation. And creates insane traffic. Next comes an insane infrastructure cost. And what's wrong with owning a home and owning a car? I love it. What's wrong with building a soft density to where the traffic is moderate, no one is stuck in the rent trap, and no one is dependent on public transportation? Most new suburbs going up around me are being built with oversized lots and not walking distance to a store. They are passive income investment homes. Being built too spred out, and ALL are gated neighborhoods, where you have to go through a guard. They are not building them in any kind of supply and demand equilibrium. I want my landlord arrested for racketeering. The rent trap is not a equilibrium. While my landlord gets that gated neighborhoods. Arrest supply side economics people. The river will find its own path. Supply and demand math has a equilibrium. Now. Supply Side economics says build apartment buildings. Supply and demand says build single family homes.
@@noel7777noel Car companies lobbied the government to build car dependant cities and it eventually became illegal to build anything else. Free market is a bad argument that lets car companies off the hook for their influence in te government
@@handsfortoothpicksMy mom choosing to buy a car every 3yrs is demand side economics. And I want her predatory lenders arrested for charging my mom interest rates. EVERYBODY LOVES cars. Supply and >DEMAND
I managed to get my mom to sit through this whole thing. She’s never been very interested in this kind of topic but found the video funny enough to subscribe at the end of it. Thanks for all the time you put into these, it makes a difference
Alright, cool, you understood and liked the joke. But now, did you understand the video? Can you project yourself mobilising people, friends and family to, not only raise awareness, but act against climate change ? Even if that means changing the layout of your neighborhood, changing food consumption habits and being extra annoying in youtube comments about it? ahah Yeah the joke was good, but that's not essential
I surprised a bunch of people by how Germany has such small fridges, because it’s so convenient to go to the supermarket. When I told them I had two within a 5-minute walk and 3 in a 10-minute walk, they were like :O WHAT?!
Wow, I never thought about it like that. I just assumed the big American fridge was part of the whole "everything is bigger in America" thing. But yeah, we have shops close by here (NL) as well, and big fridges aren't a necessity either.
@@BramKaandorp Yeah, this contributes as well to the massive scope of preservatives in US foods as well. When your food has to last for two weeks, it has to last for two weeks, whether that means tons of preservatives or not. My ex was floored by how quickly things spoiled here, and I was like… STOP BUYING TWO WEEKS OF FOOD!
@@puellanivis yup. My father lives in a village near Münster (or more like outside of the village) but even he has at least one store for food he can reach in 5-10min with hte car.
It's so frustrating. I literally live about a ten minute walk from an active shopping center with grocery and other shopping and restuarants. But because of bare to no sidewalks and a major cross junction, it makes it absolutely dangerous to walk there. Also there are no bike lanes, so forcing car use.
I agree it is very frustrating. I live less than 2 miles away from two different shopping centers with grocery stores and for the same reasons I don't feel safe walking or biking to either one.
@VaderxG not sure why you chose my comment to respond to, but I wasn't talking about why things becoming a certain way in the past. I'm talking about how it's taken so long for things to change even when the people are ready for it to. Plus, that's a weak argument considering most other developed nations do way more for public transport and accessibility than us for the same reason. Our government let's companies vote with their money. Car and oil lobbyist are a massive part of the problem. If you don't think they know that adding sidewalks and bikes and even going for more centralized living doesn't hurt their industries then you haven't been paying attention. It's not a conspiracy, it's just the truth. I mean lobbyists jobs are there to either keep or change things to better their employer's business. That's literally their job. Sure our addiction and dependence on cars was a cooperative spiral but the way things are now isn't. I didn't vote for my housing costs being well over half my income for a shitty one bed in someone's basement. Those people with money are the ones making the decisions and trying to frame them as empathetic for wanting short term profit is a little uncomfortable, no? When the few actively make worse the lives of the many things are no longer sustainable. The ultra wealthy are bleeding the population dry and this is only one part. I'm sure they have all kind of justifications they like to tell themselves but they know what they're doing. They may be oblivious to the harm, but that's willful obliviousness. If you want to be under paid corporate shill for your life, be my guest. I'll keep being here waiting on the older generation to die so the younger people can step up and hopefully put forth actual change. First, with stripping corporations of their voting power. Corporations aren't people ffs.
@@hotarubinariko I think the older generation was once the younger generation, but when they got older, they changed their minds. Not sure why you think the younger generation will make different choices once they are in charge.
@@theoverunderthinker I don't think every generation thinks the same though. There's a theory that generations often think in a 4 part cycle. Often in a reflection of the decisions of the last generation and how much wealth is available. How accurate that is, I don't know. But if you're right and our generation will become the same heartless, conscienceless boomers we have now then it's ok. Our planet will be uninhabitable in the next one or two generation anyway in that case, so humans will die out and who cares about money or affordable housing if there's no humans right? It's a bummer. I'd like to be a mom, but knowing things will just become worse for them is a hard pill to swallow.
Modern suburbs are the worst of both worlds. Not enough space to do something useful with your property, like a food forest. Yet everyone is still effectively piled on top of each other. Except for the grocer, walkable amenities such as shopping or entertainment are all just novelties that get old after a while. It's for those reasons that I choose neither and live in a rural area. That makes even more sense now since I can work from home many days.
I don't think people choose them for their idylic nature. They are like minivans, compromise. It's the cheapest way to live in a city. As you say shopping is all just a novelty after a while, so why pay double to live in the city? The prices are crazy.
@@billbillerton6122 I think people over exaggerate how far they need to go to get something in the suburbs, because they often complain about how there's a walmart and starbucks on every corner. I would ride my bike or skateboard everywhere. Now people have Uber that's faster and cheaper than a taxi, you don't really even need a car if you only ever have to go a few miles at a time to do shopping.
@@tjshultz89 yeah honestly do people like this genuinely think that suburbs are devoid of any industry? sure theres less shit to do but its not devoid of things to do theres just not a bar on every corner and a copy paste italian bistro (this one has the best pizza in america we promise) 30 feet in any direction from any point
What baffles me the most about these suburbs is that they insist on making them COMPLETELY FLAT. No conforming to terrain, nothing. I live in a fairly car-dominated place in Australia, and almost all of the suburbs follow the terrain instead of bulldozing through it.
I lived in a very hilly/mountainous city in America that has a mostly square grid forced onto the terrain. There are several major intersections where the middle of the intersection is at the crest of a hill, so if you're turning across lanes you have zero view of oncoming traffic. And people have no problem speeding up a steep grade right into an intersection with their giant overpowered SUVs. There are very poor lines of sight in these areas created by not working around the terrain especially for seeing pedestrians. It's a major hazard
@algotkristoffersson15 Exactly. Sometimes they do that, but not always. It turns out that effectively planning a city takes way more finesse than the relevant authorities are willing to employ.
This is a very informative video for a non-American. It made me understand why some of my american friends on discord would talk about driving around an hour for good food or boba due to housing being so far from other facilities which is unheard of in my country where max i woud only drive MAX 20 min any more would be a waste of time.
There was a point where I was driving over 215km round trip every day to and from work. Which normally if going 100km/hr to get there isn't too bad, but traffic is so congested all the time, it was about 90 minute to work and about 2 hours back. I now live about 10km from the closest business that isn't just some random car shop. Edit: I'm speaking about living in the US btw. Originally Florida now North Carolina
I remember a story by Ray Bradbury where they invent teleportation and people hardly ever go outdoors. People who liked walking barefoot in the rain were considered crazy. This story isn't far from what America looks like today.
I love comments like this. So you never leave your basement? I assume that’s the case since I live in a suburb in an older part of town where there are parks and sidewalks and the parks and sports fields are filled from morning to night whenever the weather is even half decent. Don’t make assumptions based on your singular view.
Canadian here. The bags of milk are used in conjunction with a re-useable milk jug that holds the bag upright while its in the fridge. The upper corner is cut allowing the milk to be easily poured with the jug. Once a bag is empty you switch out for a new one, the bags come sealed so you can store them on their sides. This means less plastic is used than a big jug (cartons are probably still better for the environment) and it takes up less space.
Whether or not it's better for the environment to have a carton or bag not not be what seems obvious. Cartons, to my knowledge, have a mixture of paper and plastic. While they may be using less plastic, the way that the two are combined makes both harder to recycle. Plus cutting down trees ain't the greatest. Really no perfect answer here, but just something I was thinking about.
@@madiis18account glass are the perfect recycling material for drinks. But sadly they break too easily as they are too brittle. Metal is also good. But you don't get the satisfaction of seeing the liquid. And if it's store for too long the drink would have a subtle metallic taste.
@@penguinpingu3807 idk there are thick as hell glass bottles that i've dropped on concrete floors that haven't broken. And when you break glass, it can still be recycled and turned back into a bottle.
Milk is available in reusable glass bottles from a variety of grocers in the SF Bay Area. There's a refundable deposit, and the groceries that sell them also accept them for returns. They're washed, sterilized, and reused. Plenty sturdy, just don't slam them around like plastic half gallons and you're fine. The energy for washing may actually be more than the total energy for producing a new bag (economies of scale be crazy like that), but the glass is much more sustainable than the plastic. We can make more green energy, but we can't make more crude oil deposits.
Hi! I just wanted to let you know this video spurred me to find my city's city council meetings, thanks to the Google search terms you provided in the description, AND the zoning map! Guess what, most of it is R-1 zoning! I'm planning on going to one of these planning meetings and hopefully get something going...maybe even interviewing some local residents! Let's see how that goes!
I live in Warsaw, Poland and I would never believe I would one day see a benefit of living in a post-communist world made of apartment blocks. But now, after travelling a lot around the world my view has changed so drastically. I have literally 100 metres to the nearest metro station, train station, bus station and a tram. I can be in any part of the city in 20 minutes max. We have 10 shops within 5min walk, a 15min walk to the nearest opera, theatre, park, hospital, swimming pool, medical center, a freaking zoo and a trylion of restaurants. We see our friends every week. We go to a gallery during workdays. We eat out a lot and enjoy the hell out of it. I can jump out of work for half an hour to check how my son is doing at preschool. I can book a dentist appointment 15 minutes in advance. Spontaneity is our life, not a hassle. I still remember how powerless I felt when I lived in a suburban detached house and had to plan every activity in advance, or god forbid, ask for a ride to buy a stupid bag of milk (it’s a thing now Jason). Or literally risk my life trying to walk to the nearest mall (god I hate malls).
I’m so glad I grew up in a small town developed in the 1870s, the center of town was at most 2 miles away from the furthest houses and had several restaurants for kids to eat at, every Friday in the summer the street would shut down for kids to run around. Every branch of the town had its own separate park for kids to play at and college age kids were employed to play games with all the locals. It was fantastic.
Hyped for the most ambitious crossover event in history! Who would've thought - two of my favorite "The country you live in is absolutely fucked" TH-camrs - together at last!
Yes! The other day I was literally wondering why neither of these channels had released new content. I actually started to worry that they gave up. Guess they were just taking a little extra time to polish off an extra ambitious project!
As a Korean American who's lived in Korea for half my life, I miss the walkable neighborhoods teeming with life during night and day. Easy to just walk out for a snack, meet friends, grab a beer, go to work/school. If I need to, I could take the bus or taxi for to go some place a bit further away and the time is not different than taking a car. Most families own one or two cars, with most parking areas underground or in a separate parking building. There are definitely pros and cons for the dense urban lifestyle, but America just lacks decent urban areas so much that I miss it a lot.
Visit cities now. Google walkable areas and check out the walkable scores. Things are changing now. People are getting hip. Bikes are all over the place now.
im from australia and i find that, american city planners are just blind and think that the only way to decrease traffic is too build another lane which in fact usually increases traffic. here in australia its decently walkable in the large cities, what is usual here is for there to be suburbs but the suburbs are close to services, plenty of ways to walk around atleast compared to america, free bus routes that loop, consistent train networks and lots of bike lanes. i find it kind of annoying how we are seen as a very low density country when in fact, our cities are more dense than most in america and the truth is that we really only live in 4 maybe 5 very small bays or ports on the coast. australia has city, then countryside closeby, then nothing for hundreds of kilometres.
Same bro, I lived in Yangju about an hour north of Seoul and absolutely loved living in a high rise and walking 10 minutes to the Paris baguette bakery and my taekwondo dojo as a kid
This is not just American problem unfortunately. In Western Australia where I live, the urban sprawl here is almost out of control and the public transport is not good enough. And each time there is a new apartment proposal, a lot of the locals will go Not in My Backyard! I envy places like Tokyo with their walkable suburbs and excellent public transport.
Hello fellow west Aussie. Boomers tell me an hour drive is “not very far” for my low income job yeah sure “not very far” adds up There’s no “local” jobs, I have to drive to work, yet the price of having a car is rising. Public transport would easily 2X the time I would take to get anywhere. I’m already time poor by being born with disabilities and having poor time management 😂 Unfortunately my work is easily done online but people NEED to micromanage people at offices
You cannot compare Asia countries to Anglo-Saxon countries. The reason Japan can do this is because it is Pseudo-Homogenous meaning that all the Koreas Chinese and Hafu asians that live there cannot be easily discriminated against. Look at every law in America that you saw in the video and you see why public transportation in places like Australia and the US sucks. Its better to look at other european countries that colonized as well.
@@kofiboateng9181 Singapore. It is a very diverse country. You have Chinese, Malaysian and Indians all in one place. They also spoke very different language to each others. Tho, English is majority.
@@Commievn That is what I was getting at with the Pseudo-homogenous! I am not implying that every asia country is the same, but there is a shared history amongst the groups culturally wise, which is where the indifference in those countries come from. That is the same as the US but the dynamics is difference within the nuances of how these differences are projected onto the masses. In Far East asian countries, it would be easier for most East Asians and some South East asians to mask themselves in society up until they speak or someone sees their name, which is not the case in America for obvious reason! As you said though Asia as a whole is really really diverse. More diverse than the US to be far, but the American concepts of diversity when it comes to people breaks down when it leaves the border of the US. That is why I had made the point when it comes to comparison!
I had a high school project where we were supposed to find a problem in our community, and propose a solution to it. I didn't quite understand the assignment apparently, because I did my presentation about the low density zoning of our suburban town, and everyone else did it on things like "Our school doesn't have urinal dividers!" and "This one road could use some streetlights."
I find it bizarre there's even specific terminology for "walkable", "livable", "human oriented" places. To me that's just what a city is supposed to be.
@@hannaheric634 unfortunately many places use NA as the example. You see this type of development also popping up in europe and developing parts of Africa/Asia but it doesn’t have the same effect because it’s not ubiquitous
While watching this, I kept thinking “that scenery looks like where I live. That neighborhood looks like neighborhoods where I live. That building looks a building near where I live.” And then I realized that this was definitely shot in Colorado super close by to my detached-single-family-zoned-home. What a coincidence! :) That doesn’t often happen while watching TH-cam
Something I know is that you do not have to cut down all the trees to build a suburb, in fact you can leave most of them up and just build the houses in the forest. It makes for a very beautiful neighborhood with lots of nature. Yea there will still be streets but you can leave woods with bike trails in between the neighborhood blocks, connecting everyone to neighborhood pools and parks and markets/stores. But companies like to save money and time and cut all the trees down and then half ass try to deal with the inevitable flooding that comes because there’s no more trees to absorb all the water.
neighborhoods built like that are indeed very beautiful, but they come most of the time with a very hefty price to live in. and that's not just because of how desirable they are. building a neighborhood as such would mean even more spending towards water, electricity and natural gas (if applicable) infrastructure, that being compared to the already massive price tag of maintaining the infrastructure of the typical car-centric suburbia. it's nice to live in one, but definitely not something that everyone can afford. and if the government would start subsidizing these places like they do with typical car-centric urban sprawl, we would not only be moving the problem but also reinforcing it. providing modern utilities over such a large surface area is not cheap in the slightest. especially for water, since when you make a pipe network larger, you are significantly increasing the maintenance and running cost of not only acquiring the water, but also getting it to people. the main problem with american public planning is land allocation. way too much is going towards single family home packed suburbia, way too little going towards city commercial center or high density residential areas. this car centric philosophy is also leading to every single business requiring a massive parking lot in order for customers to actually arrive there, leading to very inefficient use of commercial zoned space. on the space of one walmart + parking lot, you could fit an entire commercial center housing tens of businesses, bringing in so much more tax revenue and value to customers and nearby residents. in Europe, this would be a pretty dumb proposal, because if you have a massive supermarket complex somewhere, that likely means that the land is cheap and undesirable for residency. but in America, this is often not the case. there are many acres of parking lots in places where, under different zoning laws, people would pay a lot for a home or a business there. just look at Houston, urban downtown commercial lots just wasted on parking space. and it used to be so much worse, they've recently ammended their minimal parking requirements since they realized they fucked up. just look up a picture of downton houston in the 1970's, and you'll see what I mean. even today it's still really bad for modern city standards. compare that to an aerial view of basically any major european city and try to find a parking lot that's the same size or bigger than surrounding lots allocated towards something else
Another thing that won't help is that if you get a neighborhood that is not very green, and you want to make it greener, beware HOAs which make it possible for you to be unable to plant over a certain amount of trees in your home. Obviously, it's not mayoritavely important but it's something to at least take notice.
My streetcar suburb hood in Philly is like a city in a forest! 120 year old huge trees cover the streets, more big trees on my city block alone than in most city park in the USA. It's funny I still work freelance in NYC but my home in the suburbs is one of the first street car suburbs just across the river from downtown Philadelphia, love it, just wish not in the evil empire, but otherwise the best.
My bf is American living in the suburbs and I’m from Norway. Whenever I visit him I’m baffled that we need to jump in the car to get groceries. First time I was suppose to visit he said he would be at work one day I’m there and I said «well that’s fine I’ll just take a walk to the mall» he laughed so hard🥲 I’m so happy I have 3 grocery stores walking distance from where I live lol and nearest mall is 20min away by walking😅
When I lived in a Swedish suburb of 10,000 people, I had a mall, 2 schools, a bus terminal, 12 different bus stops, countless stores, restaurants, and parks, all within a 5 minute walk. I now live in an American town with even more people and the farthest I can walk is to my mailbox. What's a bus stop?
do you just lug 2 weeks of groceries around a major city? thats absurd to me "hmm yes I need to buy some frozen chicken but I didnt bring something that allows me to get from point a to point b fast enough to avoid the chicken sitting in the danger zone for 20 minutes+ this is definitely 100% the optimal way to exist"
@@girthicusmaximus The thing is, when you live near a bunch of small shops that are within a few minutes of walking/biking, you do not need to go on biweekly shopping sprees stockpiling on everything you might need for 2 weeks. You just grab a few things here and there, maybe while you're out for a walk, maybe while you're coming home from work. Out of bread? Just pick some up later today when you walk your dog. Or when you meet your friend. No need to pay for gas, + you get fresh air and stay active. I understand this lifestyle can be hard to comprehend when you've lived your entire life driving a car everywhere, but it really can be so much more convenient than having to drive every single time. Btw, if your city is actually designed well, you usually won't have to walk for 20 mins just to pick up some chicken.
I don't own a car here in Finland, because finding parking in the city that's both affordable and does not have a car is far more inconvenient than just using public transportation. The idea that every single business has their own parking lot is one of the most insane ideas anyone could come up with. I like the atmosphere of the city centre where I can walk or bike around and find cool new places or shops, and replacing that by sitting in a car to go anywhere is really ass-backwards
It’s honestly super annoying. And there’s not always good walking options so you’re basically forced to drive or walk on a small sidewalk next to a huge busy road.
Hey, how's there with snow? Cause here in Vyborg, only 30 km away usually very walkable streets have been turned to crazy terrain, when snow falls, then melts, then falls, then melts, then there is very cold few days, then warm ones... Too much ice on sidewalks and snow and icicles hanging dangerously from the buildings
Another Finnish person here. If you don't live in the middle of Lapland wilderness, the few times when you absolutely do need to get somewhere by car, it's a lot less hassle and costs less to just call a taxi if you can't get a friend, a coworker or a relative to give you a lift. Also calling an ambulance will not bankrupt you, if ER is where you need to go.
Unfortunately, at least Helsinki still uses minimum parking requirements for most new developments. I wished they'd let the market decide and not force developers build more parking than there's demand for.
As a European, this video honestly blew my mind. I had no idea that THAT'S why single-family homes are so incredibly common in America. No offense, but living in the suburbs and not being able to just walk to the nearest store or...anything, honestly, seems like a nightmare.
I enjoy living in a rural area but it does suck having to drive 15 minutes for anything. If I were to live in town I'd really prefer everything being walking distance.
Car and oil lobbyists have a foothold in politics. They want the American consumerism to rely on vehicles and gasoline. Really cities in the northeast and outlier cities like Chicago, Miami and San Francisco are pretty walkable. New York City, Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Providence, Philadelphia, and Washington DC if you ever want to visit.
I lived in a residential area in Mexico it was almost entirely single family homes but every street had individual homes selling different things. My neighbor sold frozen bananas and ice cream further down the street was a house that had a small convenience store in the front room. I didn’t need to drive for food and it was essentially a suburb.
See, we used to have this thing that was more compact than a suburb, yet less dense than a city. It was called a village or small town. Typically, people would live where they worked, and thus have easy access to the services of their neighbors.
@@night6724 Because zoning rules prevents them from doing that. Zoning rules are currently dictating how people should live in the majority of North America.
I lived in New Zealand for a few years, and one of the things I miss the most was not needing to drive. I had a car, but I hardly used it. I saved money, lost weight, could go to the bar if I wanted, and actually enjoyed driving again because I was using the car to go on trips. I would explore the city just by walking, and I saw so much that I would have otherwise missed.
@@kayleebrown2900 I lived in Dunedin. Like I said, it's quite walkable, but there are buses that serve the whole city and outer suburbs including Mosgiel and Port Chalmers; they even have WiFi on board. The bus was free for a while because of covid-19, and it's still cheap now. Driving is effectively optional.
Public transport was pretty awful when I lived there. There's one shitty train-line between Wellington & Auckland which was often impassable due to landslides (because all the forests were cut down). I lived in Whanangui and Palmerston North and cycled as much as I could, but I found it was pretty hostile for cycling too. And you had to wear a stupid plastic hat because of the stupid anti-cycling attitude they had/have that means it's against the law to go cycling without one.
There's some video essay somewhere also pointing that American suburbs don't make sense not only "merely" in terms of certain conveniences, and reduced environmental damage, but also in terms of finances, with suburbs not paying for themselves, tax-wise, and so forth. And also not covering their maintenance costs, requiring further developments in a somewhat pyramidal-scheme.
NJB covers this in a vid. Basically the development of suburbs brings in a huge influx of tax dollars but over time the infrastructure, meaning a road and sewer and water and electricity and internet running to EVERY SINGLE HOUSE must eventually be replaced and upgraded. And the property taxes for houses would be absolutely through the roof if all these long-term costs were factored in. They aren't, but the people in the neighborhood need these upgrades, repairs and services, so either the neighborhood has enough influence ($$$) and essentially bankrupts the city by demanding these services without changing property taxes of course to offset them. Or it falls into disrepair and becomes a "low income neighborhood" or "blight" (black).
@@fasolakid1 it may be, but I guess it's from some of those "anti-suburb" youtubers, like "Adam Something" and "not just bikes," but maybe someone else who'd maybe appear on their recommendaions. I'll see if I can find it. ... here, it's from "not just bikes," "Why American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme [ST03]"
It's american dream to be stuck in suburbian hell where you go from closed space in your house to closed space in your car to go to closed space in shop/work and back to closed space in house
If you go walking outside you get harassed by a Jordan Neely so that's why America is designed this way. It's a far cry from the all white northern European countries.
They actually did the same exact thing to what was once an old mall in my town. They leveled it and developed it into a bunch of shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and mid rise apartment buildings. It’s a great concept, and it would be cool to see a whole town based on this model and not just a single part of town.
Giant mall redevelopment is always so interesting to me, because outside of adding residential, all the same elements are there (retail, dining, etc.), but repackaged in the way they originally were before those malls dominated North America in the 1980s and 1990s.
yes, building up like Europe where housing is above mixed commercial compresses the total travel foot print to essentials. surrey has the elevated light rail
As a german i always loved the american suburbs in movies. But i can see how you always need a car to drive anywhere and it is a really inefficient way of living😅
@@agnes8679 You're right that America needs more amenities within walking distance of housing, and that large, detached homes aren't a problem per se. However, the demand for detached homes in America is vastly exaggerated, and certain alternatives are ignored completely - people just jump to the conclusion that it's either mcmansions or commie blocks, and nothing inbetween. In much of the UK, for example, the most common neighbourhoods you'll see are rows of (mostly single family) terraced houses with modest front and back gardens. These places vary in style, some have more trees than others, etc, but they are almost always very pleasant places to live, and they are WAY denser than detached housing with big lawns. That density is a large part of what makes them so great, as they put you close enough to the town/city centre without meaning you have to live in an apartment (which, while there's nothing wrong with it, is less appealing for many).
@@agnes8679 I agree, given how excessive everything in US can go then those big housing blocks would be much worse than suburbia- in there You atleast have Your own back yard and quiet (if lucky) front street where kids can play.
@@phyz2892 I don't want a small garden, front or back. I want a house with green rolling hills, no fences (it's not a castle ffs) and no neighbors visible from my property. Peasants can only dream.
Where would you work, how much money could you make? Most villages are poor. Maybe, with work from home becoming more accessible that could change, but only for certain job types. Someone has to actually do physical work. A plumber makes more money with many customers, something a village doesn't offer.
realistically, america just need take a page out of our book in europe. i've seen multiple videos of why europe is designed way better than anywhere in america and its really shocking how inconsiderate they are towards children and people without cars. unless you own a car or have money for taxi's every day, you literally have to walk 30-40 mins just to get to the nearest playground, supermarket, or public transport. america is set up in a way where everyone has to spend a stupid amount of money for basic everyday things. want that nice house you've had your eyes on for years & worked so hard for? well here it is, but its 17 miles from the closest amenities & if you have kids there is nowhere for them to play besides the road out front, or your own back garden. need to take a trip into town but don't own a vehicle? expect a long ass walk or an expensive taxi ride as there is rarely a tram or bus system within these kind of neighbourhoods. ordering a takeaway for the family? expect cold food when it arrives. broke your leg? ambulance will be with you in 25-40 minutes. i live in birmingham, england. i have 3 corner shops, a huge retail park (shopping centre) with anything anyone could need to live an entire life, 3 petrol stations (gas stations), about 7 takeaways, 2 primary schools and 1 secondary school (2 kindergarten & 1 high school), & at least 1 bus stop on every single road, all within a 10 - 15 minute walk from my front door. america is too focused on their looks, being the prettiest it can possibly be, instead of being as people-friendly as possible; like a gorgeous woman who hold no accountability for silly and illogical actions, and blames others for their own mistakes lol.
@@retiefgregorovich810 idk, we have villages in Ireland and it kinda works, old planning styles from when the english were settling Ireland means there's a fair few of these courtyards and sometimes farmers markets. It kinda works, there's quite a few local shops and local economy though i can't say they're all doing that great but i mean there's a lot of tradies out there still working even if they only operate in villages and small towns
I'm so hooked to these urban development videos. This is my first time watching a Climate Town video, but I was already subbed to all the other channels mentioned at the end of this one before I got here. lol. And Not Just Bikes was my gateway into this realm. These videos fill me with a sense of hope that there are actually people out there fighting and advocating for real, honest-to-goodness change for the better and that maybe things can actually improve. I get lost in imagining these wonderful would-be cities and it just gives me the fuzzies. I love this content to an almost weird extent. lol. And now I can't stop playing Cities Skylines. xD
This video was recommended to me today. It's completely different from what I tend to watch. However, YT was absolutely right to recommend it to me because I found it fascinating and learnt a lot for myself. Thank you for making it.
Glad you found him! I like that he’s a nice change of pace from other climate channels. Little bit of humor to help the doom and gloom go down more easily. Glad he’s been blowing up the last couple months!
From the algorithm that brought you zoning content comes BILLIARDS CONTENT: th-cam.com/video/lINHn2qC1SQ/w-d-xo.html - warning: you will be flooded with billiards videos
I'm currently the youngest person elected in my town council. Hope this counts and I'm doing my best to advocate for mixed use developments and walkable/bike friendly infrastructure.
I grew up in a densely populated region in Germany and used to take public transport and walkable neighbourhoods for granted. Whenever I moved, I chose well-connected neighbourhoods with supermarkets closeby so that I wouldn't need a car. In my imagination, suburbs with single family homes were for "wealthier people". Watching videos like these, I suddenly realize how priviledged I actually am. Everything I need is just within walking distance - I could even walk to work if I wanted. And there is a lovely park and forests closeby. I'm not sure if people realize how livable and vivid this place is. They ususually emphasize the downsides of urban life.
@@avancalledrupert5130 Your fear is due to fear mongering from the media which plays up crime. Crime has been going down for decades and cities are much safer than they were thirty years ago. If you think urban areas have to be scarry and stressful, just look at some of the smaller villages in Europe. They're small and quiet, but everything is still walkable to a downtown urban core. When I last travelled to Europe while visiting Bruges rented a bike and took a beautiful bike ride through the country side on safe bikable backroads from the city to the town of Damme. Damme was small and in the country, but still walkable and dense when it needed to be. Taking a trip like that anywhere in the US is literally impossible. In the US if you want to get anywhere in the country you have to deal with zero walking or bike infrastructure, walking even to the store you generally have to deal with insanely dangerous country roads with speeding cars, poor sidewalks often covered in broken glass, and no crosswalks. I've lived in a city for a decade and I've never been in fear. On the contrary, I grew up in a souless single-family home suburban hellhole. It was the "nice" part of town too, the more rural parts were the drug infested dangerous areas. True story, one country road was adopted by the KKK and it got taken away because they weren't cleaning it up. In the development I lived in there were no sidewalks, the nearest business would take an hour to walk to on streets that people would drive 40mph, and my trip to school was an hour long bus ride. As a result I felt isolated, lonely and depressed. University was an eye opening experience. I lived on campus and I walked everywhere, it was amazing and I loved it. After college I moved back into suburbia and hated it. I had no where to go, the only thing to walk to was a gross retention pond next to a busy stroad. Now I live in a walkable downtown neighborhood and I'm so much happier. I walk way more, I live a five minute walk from a K-8 school for my children, I have multiple parks that I can walk to and even more that I can bike to. I've never felt more unsafe than when I was trying to get a summer job back home during college and I had to cross a huge intersection just to get to the bus and almost got killed multiple times trying to walk to a bus stop because cars are fucking dangerous. If you don't like walking, more power to you, but at least be rational with your fears because you have a much higher chance of dying in a car crash than from inner city crime.
I don’t like living by other people though. They are too loud, inconsiderate etc. I also don’t like carrying grocery shopping back by foot because I like to buy a lot at once since I have a larger family. It’s just different preferences.
@@avancalledrupert5130 Nothing wrong with country living if that's what you want. But city living in the U.S. deserves better public transportation, safe and walkable side walks for pedestrians and have conveniences like bakeries, shops and grocery stores in walkable distances. And not just cities, but towns as well. Should be no reason for there to be towns with food deserts and crappy or non existent public transport to get food and essentials.
@@toulouseberlioz910 The Food Deserts exist because of the lack of honest, quality patrons -constantly stealing and making other ways to annoy their betters. Totally the result of lowlife behavior
The problem isn’t access to stores and dinning within walkable distances - it’s the distance to employment. If working remotely replaced all office work, this type of living would be more feasible. Having a car gives the flexibility to work anywhere within driving distance and not limit employment opportunities to areas nearby. Two working spouses amplifies this need as it makes it even more difficult to live near both spouses place of employment. In addition, 30 year loans with changing interest rates and high fees to buy and sell lock you into a location and are obstacles for relocating if employment changes. I live in the suburbs and live a 5 minute drive to grocery stores, gyms, shopping, dinning, multiple parks and within a 10 minute drive of all our kids K-12 schools. The problem is It takes a 45 minute drive to get to work when I could work as efficiently from home (and do once a week). Instead, I have a manager who flys in from Chicago every other week and we still hold meetings on teams despite being in the same small 6000 sqft office building. My previous employment was 35 minutes away in the opposite direction.
Bags of milk are actually the most environmentally friendly way of packing milk. They use 20-30% less energy and produce 20-40% less greenhouse gasses according to research done at Dalhousie University. Also no on just pours milk out of the bag, we usually put it in a reusable container.
I’ve only had two memorable interactions with zoning before just completely putting it out of my mind. It’s undlessly frustrating and you can’t do a single thing about any of it.
@@FancyUnicorn I haven’t drove in five years. An absolute waste and I am far healthier for from the walking/cycling/skateboarding to get places. If only I cared about money I would be saving a ton of it.
@@FumblsTheSniper sure, there's an argument against everything I'm about to say, but ultimately: money buys comfort, security, and luxury. Having it is better than not... you may not care about money, but do you want to ever take a trip somewhere? Treat your family out to a nice sushi dinner? Own or rent nice expensive toys like boat or jet skis? How about a house? Things cost a lot of money and continue to cost in maintenance/upkeep and taxes (property tax etc.). Just some food for thought, if you don't care and are just happy and content to be alone in a tent in the woods surrounded by rotting alcoholics and toothless tweaker thieves, hey, more power to ya! I hope you don't "not care about money" because you are a trust fund baby... lucky...
American suburbs is where culture goes to die. Literally everything looks the same no matter what city you’re in and nothing is walkable. Now our European friends know why we are in awe every time we go to Europe with their dense/liveable cities and diverse public transit options
Yes, it's so strange too, because we (Anglo-westerners) tend to think we have a greater fight for preserving heritage and character, and distinct regional identities. In fact, our cities are some of the most uncharacterful because of the way we limit the permeation of spontaneous local culture and practical, natural and organic réponses to challenges, instead categorising into such rigid things which only work for some things, but are far too restrictive on the natural evolution of people's impact on where they live, and also happen to destroy the natural character of everywhere because you no longer have to build so challengingly to suit climates. In architecture, the temporal aspect is closely intertwined with the spatial, and they are all social constructs.
If you own property, you don’t want thousands of renters in shoebox apartments reducing home values and increasing crime rates. Zoning is to protect the haves from the will never have anything’s. Personally I don’t want to live in a building with no yard, no place to grill food, no garden, no personal pool. I like my neighbors whom we share food with from our gardens, I like that we don’t have screaming neighbors in the next room, playing loud music, with doors slamming. My neighbors are quiet, and friendly home and land owners. Screw that idea to box people up like sardines nonsense. I like to go to my backyard and enjoy the peace, or sit in my big living room crank up my theater and enjoy a movie or concert online, or go for a morning swim. And my home makes me money.
@@obijuan3004 Sounds like you'd like the idea of what's being proposed. In fact, it'd be even easier, and the tranquilisers of pure suburbia would be exemplified. The only way you would experience change is if you lived in an inner-city suburb, or right along a major transit corridor, or a potential local centre (in which case you would either participate in densification, or move a bit further out, etc.) Those are all negative stereotypes of higher density buildings, and they don't exist pretty much in wealthy countries where medium density is the norm, like western Europe, which have some of the best suburbs too. If you had standardly-designed terraces, you'd actually have better insulation and better soundproofing, and you could more easily fill in your private gardens with hedging and trees. And neighbours change, it doesn't matter where. And if you pair increased population of lower income people, a welfare state, and safe accessible transport infrastructure, you get so many benefits. The poor are actually normal people, like you or me, and it is the neglect which drives the unfortunate minority to take saving measures themselves. A basic universal income would help people out of poverty and into jobs; if you give money to the poorest, they will immediately add and produce in the economy, whereas even if you gave millions to the wealthiest, they'd just save it up or be able to spend it overseas. Good transport infrastructure would also help to reduce crime. And higher density is not associated with crime, as with all developed countries, like Japan or Finland (who builds 50% of housing to be social and to house homeless, and are the happiest country), and more people out on the streets means that children are safer, because those people act as secondary guardians, and as a bonus, children get to develop independence and experience freedom free from major dangers that could end them in one tiny accident (this is why the Netherlands, which standardises this infrastructure, has the happiest children, way happier compared to the US or Australia). (And yes, your copy-paste gets a copy-paste reply, even though this one was actually before, I just saw it afterwards) Basically, you would not lose anything, so you have nothing to fear. It just opens up the choice of living on a spectrum of wide choice, and, you may even be able to have suburbs closer to the city, because there are less suburbs to push out the suburbs. Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing.
When was a kid in 1994 I remember riding my bike through a construction that was about to have a cul-de-sac built on it. The neighborhood was built within some months and are now falling apart. Particle t&g siding is mostly rotted, roof shingles are curling and are needing to be replaced, foundations are sinking and bowing. I couldn't imagine being one of the saps tricked into buying one
I want to be a part of the outstanding group of individuals that bring back trains, community and walkability. Yours, Alan Fischer's, City Beautiful's and other activists' videos have motivated me to pursue education in urban planning, house management and landscape architecture. I can't wait for what I find! Thank you for all that you do! 🌻
@@corneliusthecrowtamer1937can’t wait to walk in the 100 degree weather in Los Angeles While taking the train with a bunch of homeless people that piss and shit all over the train. At the future ♥️
After living in Japan for a year, I yearn for reliable and convenient public transportation and bike able neighborhoods. I lived in the boonies but I could just hop on the train and head into the city center no problem. Man, I really miss it and my bike :(
@@donde6961 "LA is a major city but public transportation still SHIT." Why do you say that, I can get around LA just fine and I don't know how to drive. Have you tried using your Maps application on your cell phone to tell you what bus/light rail to get on? Public transit sucks everywhere, it's typically 3 times slower than a car if there's no traffic, including in Amsterdam, the famous land of transit (according to people on youtube). Same for San Francisco which is a very compact and walkable city because it was a big city before cars were invented. But I haven't noticed transit being any worse in LA than it is in SF or SJ.
@@neutrino78x having lived in LA and Tokyo, comparing the two is a joke. The public transportation in LA is so slow and unreliable compared to Tokyo. I can get from the equivalent of Long Beach to Westwood in 40 minutes in Japan on one train and less than $3.
PLANNING...that's the operative word. I live in an area that used to be farmland. Granted, 20+ years ago when we moved here, it was to move into a single-family home in a small subdivision. For 20+ years, it remained a somewhat quaint, quiet area...accessible stores, no traffic, low crime, countryside...just a great place to live. Then, folks in the city started to catch wind of how nice it was out here, and they started moving here in droves. Now...I'm not so much against that if -- IF -- anything that resembles PLANNING (there's that word again) is done before just throwing up another cheap subdivision to quell the masses. Everything is sprawled very far apart, in some areas there aren't sidewalks so you can't safely walk or ride a bike to the store...you're required to get in a car to get there. Multifloor apartments are right next to single-family subdivisions, stores are plopped down into areas that make absolutely no sense, etc. Traffic is now terrible, stores are now packed at all hours of the day. There's virtually no "land" anymore...it's all homes, roads, and stores. You can't go outside without someone's dog barking at you...and there's an almost never-ending wailing of sirens...someone getting pulled over by the cops, an ambulance, a fire truck, etc. ALL.... THE....TIME. I love well-planned communities, where just able everything is walkable (or at least bike-able)...but our city planners must've missed school on the day they taught actual planning. I've gone to planning meetings before, and they're an exercise in futility...one Karen trying to out Karen another Karen. I don't have much hair left, I fear that continued participation in these meetings will result in absolute and complete baldness. For these reasons, we're exploring our options of packing up and moving somewhere FAR away (within the next 5 years) far from anything that might succumb to urban sprawl in OUR lifetime.
Lets go back a couple thousands years. Do you really think you could live in those conditions of yours last 20 years? This living type is a byproduct of an unsustainable way of living. The reality is that you humans need to live together to make it work. Living alone in much too big house is a failure and only works because some slaves elsewhere are paying the price for it.
I love in a town that is going through zoning law changes. It's interesting to witness. Many of the older people in our town are against the changes because they fear their property values will be negatively effected. Many people have their entire retirement hinging in their property value. They expect to cash out once they hit 68. This has caused two things: - less affordable housing for younger families. - tension between old people and young people. - an end to neighborhood based schools. - over inflated cost of houses.
yeah, those fuckers are all going to dump their mcmansions to downsize into more realistically sized housing and price out all of us young people that are trying to buy what little affordable houses are left.
I feel for those people, I really do. They have spent their lives benefiting from a system that nobody of our generation will get to enjoy. And everybody wants to live a happy comfortable life for them and their family. Thats normal for anyone But at a certain point saying "I want to keep my mcmansion so I can comfortably retire in florida while I watch the world burn around me" stops being quaint old people and starts becoming dangerously selfish to the survival of our entire planet
@@racekrasser7869 Most prices are dramatically rising due to flippers (all those flipper shows) and financial groups discovering they could make more money through quickie renovations and high rents over what they had been doing for a living. We just tried to sell a house to a friend only to get blown away by how much the house had appreciated. Poor guy could no longer afford it so we had to keep it as we sure didn't want to sell it to a flipper or a corporation.
These people don't understand that making zoning better and creating livable, walk-able neighborhoods will not tank housing prices, but will make their hoses even more desirable for wealthier families that want a singe family home that is inside those types of livable, walk-able neighborhoods.
@@grantmccarty2536 This is so true. I live in a highly desirable part of DC and the row houses and detached houses in our neighborhood go for millions now because they're close to metro and a great mixed use commercial strip.
If I need bread, I walk to the bakery, If I need tomatoes, I go to the town popular market, If I need a tool to fix whatever, I go to the little store in the corner... and all walking. ~ #México 🇲🇽 ~ 💗
This video actually made me want to attend a zoning meeting. Definitely did not expect that. But, I live in a van so that probably wouldn’t go over well.
You live in a van because you believe the garbage this guy spews out. If this guy was really concerned about the environment he would be in Mexico China and a ton of third world countries where they straight pour toxins into the earth and air and think nothing of it! FACT Suburbs are trying to be destroyed by liberal new world order elite democrats who want you to own nothing and be happy. OWN NOTHING think about that while you sleep in your van, Why is a house 70 grand and a truck is 80 grand and the house takes 15 years minimum to pay off while the truck takes 5? ITS A SCAM ALL OF IT, designed to shove you into a horrible neighborhood and make you dependent on the system to live. They will come after you van and camper folks soon. They'll make it illegal to stop anywhere for more that a couple of hours. Walmart has already stopped letting campers park overnight...
No, please do. The fact that so many people can't find affordable housing to the extent that van life has become a trend is a symptom of this whole problem, and your voice deserves to be heard. Bring some friends along for support if you can. Democracy works by solidarity and engagement. There are a lot of people abusing the system right now, and those people are trying very hard to convince the rest of us that democracy is already dead. Why would they be working so hard to take voting rights away if they weren't afraid of what democracy could do to the status quo that serves them so well?
No you absolutely should! We need a huge shift in the demographics that usually attend these meetings. We need younger folks who will be impacted for generations by the changes they are making today. And not just people who are worried about their property values. Even if you live in a van you are still part of your community. You definitely have a right to speak on the development of your town or city. It should work for you as well as any other member of the town.
I love this style of educating on issues. Enough humor/pop culture references/randomness to keep anyone engaged. THIS! This is how you change minds and hearts about these important issues.
Arent they slaves and will be kept as them until theyre dead? Didnt you learn how to lie about the methods of torture required to make and keep such slaves?
I've lived in both eastern and western europe, always in a city. And I've even stayed in tiny little villages in eastern europe for a notable amount of time. The idea that you can't get to a supermarket or some other form of business in less than 10 minutes of walking is fucking ridiculous.
Glowing I was a kid in the suburbs of Portland Oregon we had a small corner store that everyone went to. We need to bring back small stores they were very very common! Why did you return back to the US?
Here in czech republic even the smaller village is expected to have some form of """""""village center"""""" with at least some amenities ...like a mini-supermarket, post office ...so on.. Like... if czech pensioner doesn't have supermarket in a WALK-ABLE distance of 10 minutes from their home ...lord... you are up for a Shakespearean tragedy theater performance...
@@AuroraMeditation Here in Bulgaria the bare minimum is a medium room sized convenience store with a table and some chairs outside. Along with a bus stop.
@Charlie Beckwith I live in a suburb and I enjoy it. But I do acknowledge how unsustainable and unfair it is. Laying down utilities for spread out suburbs is expensive as hell, and the cost is subsidized by the federal government/more efficient urban areas. Cities get paved over with giant freeways and wide roads to make room for Suburban people to visit businesses. Basically, urban environments pay for us to live in the suburbs. I think if the true cost of a single family home was passed on to people who live in them, then this problem would sort itself out. But really the waste per capita of suburban people is insane.
Zoning Meeting Inspiration Story: I went to a city council meeting in my city and they were discussing a new development. The developer wanted to build something like a 60 unit apartment building. He provided parking for 1.32 parking spaces per bedroom, but the zoning required 1.5. The developer had done a study at another nearby complex he owned showing that the demand in the area was actually 1.12 spots per bedroom and so 1.32 should be plenty. The City Council was still all worried about the parking and then when public comment came up, I and one other dude commented and explained that we thought the parking shouldn't be an issue. We were in the target demographic and both of us had one car per household and assured the council that it wouldn't be an issue. After that the council decided that they would write up some development agreements stating that the developer would be responsible for restricting its residence from bringing too many cars which would make the development acceptable to build. It felt like such a win. Going to council meetings can totally make difference.
YES go to council meetings! They're interesting, and they're one of the best ways to enact real change in your community without needing to protest or use up a lot of time.
Good for you! People don’t realize this is how democracy works: through participation! Democracy dies when people expect others to do the work and get disenfranchised when nobody does. That’s why most of the world, including The Netherlands by the way, is getting less democratic. Thanks for doing what you do!
We have similar requirements on parking in Sweden, which I think is insane. If you need to legislate like that, at least put in things like weather protected bike rooms. Having your bike chain frozen solid occasionally makes you dependent on other means of transportation.
Oh, so it’s situations like this that explain why developers over build in communities and they’re over run with cars along the streets. Who wants to live somewhere with cars lining both sides of a narrow street? Thanks for your contribution. SMH
Did something similar concerning a proposed appartment block at the end of our road here in Real London. The appartments are located near suburban commuter station and would be high value but were too small; studios and one beds. Not condusive to a stable residential population. I had my say. The building is now almost complete, and it is all 2 or 3 bed appartments. I am sure there were other pressures but it felt like a victory.
When I was a young kid, I use to think why don't other countries have houses like the US. I use to think they were weird. Now, I think the opposite. I think the US is weird for building tons of houses all spread out from each other, where you need a car for everything.
A structure marketed as a home is made to harm in specific ways. Other harm is still required to make and keep [citizens]. Less harm here, more harm there. The death camp systems been wireless.
These videos always bring a wave of depression at the thought of a dystopian future/present with hope ever dwindling by the day, and I'm always so excited to watch whenever a new one comes out.
Complete disagree. The bit of his childhood at the beginning sounds great. Enjoy your shit garbage soviet bloc housing and eating bugs in the city. At least kids in the suburbs will see grass.
@@droptableaccount1820 Soviet blocs are great. Everything is accessible. Schools, restaurants, shops, pharmacies, and parking lots are all accessible within a 10 minute walk. They have parks as well, you know. Let the kids socialize. Much better than you car-centric suburban dystopia.
We moved into a walkable neighborhood and LOVE IT. We are in Louisville, Kentucky and these areas are hard to find. We moved in 3 years ago not realizing how this would change our lives. Sidewalks for walking, riding bikes, walking the dog, and walking to the stores/ restaurants/ banks/ gas stations. We got one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood.
I'm confused. You ride your bike on the sidewalk? In a dedicated zone or just with the pedestrians? Here bikes belong on the road, if there is no specific marking on where to ride it.
We got an old, small semi-detached in Canada and were in disbelief at how lacking the insulation was! You'd think good insulation would be a priority for a house up North.... It took a few years of teeth grinding renovations but we got our home fully and properly insulated and a good quality heat pump. The difference in monthly electric bill was several hundreds, and we no longer FREEZE in the winter. Now I'm working on turning our useless front lawn into a beautiful edible garden, hoping more people in the neighborhood might join in on the trend. One of our neighbor was dubious at first, but now that we share our bounty with him he's def grown a positive view on our unusual looking front lawn.
I witnessed this "bag of milk" phenomenon on a trip to Quebec. They don't stack the bag in the fridge. The bag goes into an empty pitcher like most Americans would use for homemade lemonade. They just snip the corner off and pour it off the cap.
I'm in a small Oregon town that has seen a revival of its downtown since the single family zoning laws changed. It's been incredible to see the investment dollars come in to build higher density, mixed use buildings. The "city" is finally feeling livable.
Personally I don't like living in a high density zone but people gotta live where they can I suppose, wherever is affordable. Stuff like that is built for profit, not for human comfort.
A few years go I moved from a "colonial suburb" to a mixed use urban neighborhood in a different metro area. 2 years later, after not needing to drive anywhere, I ditched my car. On the rare times when I can't walk or use transit, I use a ride hail ... and my transportation budget is much smaller. Within one mile, I have 6 supermarkets, a couple of drug stores, museums, theaters, and more restaurants, cafes, and small businesses than I can count. I can walk 2 miles through city parks to my office. My neighborhood has a mix of 100+ year old single family houses, duplexes and triplexes, old and new mid-size apartment buildings. The houses are expensive, the multi-family units are not. The crime rate is lower than the city average. The large streets are being restructured to be more pedestrian friendly. This is in America ... I'm in one of the cities that eliminated single family zoning. It's not perfect, but it's getting closer.
I lost it at "magic of editing" and "William nilliam". I love your sense of humor. I was all set for a borin lg informative video(nothing wrong with those) but you delivered something I can share with my friends!
One of the funniest moments in a recent Not Just Bikes video was when Jason forgot to shake the bag all the way down into the pitcher before cutting it open, and ended up spilling it all over the table. Classic, highly specifically Canadian, comedy.
Haha, yeah. I've lived outside of Canada for 22 years, but watching him put the bag into the pitcher I was 100% anticipating him to bang it twice on the table before opening it. And then he didn't, and hilarity ensued, but I was doubly amused that "bang the pitcher" is so ingrained in me even to this day. :)
I was hung so heavy on “bag of milk” and I was telling myself “don’t be the guy they keep saying you are. Let it go. This is a random video on TH-cam, let it go”, but I was willing to keep moving. But you came back. Gave it precisely the attention it deserved, and I felt absolution!
As a Canadian I found that comment so funny & had to rewatch it to find where he said "bag of milk" because it was just so natural for me I didn't notice. Yeah, in Canada & Europe our milk comes in bags.
The bags of milk come from when Canada switched to the metric system, but all milk jugs were in imperial measurements. It was a quick fix until machinery was retooled to produce metric containers. However I can tell you from living in Canada for a few years that the Milk Bags are pretty cool. You buy a big bag subdivided into smaller bags, and throw what you don't need immediately into the freezer to keep longer. You also buy a plastic pitcher designed specifically for the bags and cut off the corner of the bag to dispense. It works better than you would think. Here in Wisconsin you can buy bagged milk at places like Kwik Trip.
I love the idea of Condos because they are less maintenance, but HOAs are total nightmares. They are incredibly inefficient and overly overbearing when it comes to rules and regulations. I want to own a home, not be ruled by an HOA.
The only building code needed is effective soundproofing in walls in all multiple dwelling units and hotels. Once those become embedded in public consciousness, aversion to density goes away immediately.
In my country we have sound regulations in the building code. For contact noise (f.e. Knocking on a wall, stamping on a floor) it is 54dB (between houses/apartments), for aerial noise (music, shouting) it is 52dB (between houses/apartments), between two rooms the noise level may not be higher than 32 dB and for installation noise it is 30dB (inside the house/apartment). So an AC, central heating pipes, sewer pipes, toilet flushing etc. may not contribute more noise than 30dB inside your home. So our houses are built with anchorless cavity walls (two walls not attached to one another) between houses or massive concrete walls or sand-lime blocks of 25 to 30cm (10 to 12 inch) between houses/apartments. And what we call floating floors in apartments. Those are sand cement screed on a layer of insulation (3cm/1 inch) on top of the load-bearing concrete floors. You almost hear nothing from your upstairs neighbors. All to keep the noise to an acceptable level in adjacent houses/apartments. We’re a small country with lots of apartment buildings and row houses. So lots of shared walls and floors. You really need those noise regulations otherwise you get screamingly mad.
This will always be the issue with large buildings in the US. If you want a realistic shot at making this a thing, people don't wanna deal with stomping and yelling neighbors. Until then sprawling will happen.
@@RealConstructor "You almost hear nothing from your upstairs neighbors." The "almost" is the problem. I'm on the autism spectrum, with the associated sensory processing issues, and "almost" isn't good enough. Throw in my risk-averseness, and you'll have to drag me into living in a city kicking and screaming. (As in "I custom-build my PC with Noctua fans and a manual speed controller and choose parts based on heat output to get the in-room noise down" and "The physical sensation of wearing earplugs drives me crazy". I *need* a sanctuary where I can escape the noise for enough hours in the day.)
@@ssokolow I’m noise sensitive myself and I live in an older apartment, built before the building code noise restrictions. That is a challenge sometimes. Even with the house rules we have. No mechanical noise after 19.00 and no noise at all after 23.00 hrs. Luckily it is limited to sometimes. Most of the times there is no noise, only living sounds, like we call it. So you hear a toilet flushing, slamming of a door, hear the door bell of the downstairs neighbors, hear the upstairs neighbor walk with his shoes on the tile floor. That sort of noises we call living sounds.
@@RealConstructor Yeah, that still sounds like more than what I'm used to. No toilet flushing sounds, rare to hear someone walking overhead, door sounds within hearing range are almost nonexistent. Also, for the periods when I'm nocturnal, I need to be able to ask those I live with to be quiet for 30-60 minutes to let me fall asleep. Hard to do that with people who aren't family.
Bag of Milk: This is wildly used in large industrial settings. I used to make ice cream at the Salt N Straw factory and all of the base/cream was in bags. This made it very, very easy to open and pour into machines or buckets and drastically cut down on overall product waste. Otherwise, bags of milk were only good for throwing at friends.
The bags are only for buying larger quantities of milk. You can only buy them in 3 bag packs (1L each), if you buy 1L or 2L at a time you buy cartons. I've always assumed it's done to reduce plastic waste compared to American gallon jugs, but in a lot of municipalities they're not even recycled.
Serious, non-rhetorical question: What if you had a reusable pitcher at home that you could empty your bag of milk into, then recycle the bag. Would we use less plastic that way?
In Switzerland the zoning is made in the way that older single family houses are replaced by high quality multi family housing, it allows to leverage existing transport infrastructure (e.g. increase train frequency) instead of having to build new ones. Land is also scarce. Within 15’ walk in a smaller town you can do groceries, go to the restaurant, get a haircut or reach a train station. Cars are mostly for weekend activities (and yet public transport goes even to the most remote areas)
Maybe that's a German thing but I think all of our communities are walkable. Our cities are designed in a way that no one has to walk more than 15 minutes to reach a supermarket. It's a square design where you have a batch of houses and each side of a road and in the middle is a supermarket, a bakery, stuff you need every day. So everyone can walk. There are tiny villages with like 10 houses, they don't have one and need a car. But 90 percent of all Germans I'd say have walkable access :)
@@DerDudelino Hence the argument that European cities are just better than North American cities. As a Canadian, I don't think I have ever seen a truly walkable community. I have seen the odd cluster of houses near amenities, but it is a genuine issue here that you must own a car to live. Or if you live in a city centre, you are so rich that nothing matters. The Ontario government is trying to mandate higher density housing be built to support our housing crisis, but no small towns will accept that because they have this infatuation with keeping their small town feel. It's ridiculous that my home town with 150 000 people and suburbs for miles in every direction refuses to call itself a small city. We have the population of a small city, but none of the amenities. There are no jobs here, everyone commutes for an hour or so to work, and there are very few stores. On top of that there's like 3 grocery stores servicing the whole city, which means that less than 5% of the population can feasibly walk for their groceries. The town council is all old white people that have lived here for years and refuse to see it for what it is. They fight tooth and nail against any construction that is above 3 floors, and god forbid there is an area that isn't sold to developers to turn into town houses. I hate where I live.
But a developer built NOW a walkable compact subdivision it would NOT get hi prices, new small houses and lots screams poor to people. Also, you can make the fanciest small engine car and people still want big, Lexus makes no small cars. . .2. I sorta disagree houses are bad cause they are not attached, little heat gets thru modern walls and heating is efficient, and instead basically a house is bad cause it tends to be big and take lots of material and Greens want us to live in tiny places, if you wanted the same footage in an apartment they would say No, be honest.even if you have lots of kids you can't find an apartment with as many rooms as a big house....
@@huntergibson9359 ... My theory is car focused system DO make it so 1 bad shop or 1 bad employer or 1 bad city is competing with many others since people can Drive further than could walk, so if 1 shop has rude staff just drive other way to different shop. And if 1 city started jacking up taxes the shops there cold just relocate to next city and still serve same customers... So there is a huge benefit to car systems ,, , I mainly say this cause see some City Councils turning very bad, imagine if in Germany if city country turned bad and overly taxed and badly managed shops and employers and people they all are stuck living under Tyranny and suckiness, so cat saves us from half the govt badness maybe Europe has , just a theory...
all milk comes in bags. They're called udders. They're also difficult to stack, and you have to feed them, so this bag is arguably an improvement on that, at least.
Few things: 1) Thanks to Not Just Bikes for bringing me here. 2) Love the content. 3) I liked and subscribed. 4) City Beautiful is also an amazing channel. 5) I live in Aurora, so it was fun seeing you in and around the metro. 6) I could go on and on, but I’m just grateful for this kind of information. Feeling empowered to help make change.
City Beautiful has become one of mu favorites channels. I didn’t know about Not Just Bikes but also subscribed to it. I love these crossover between channels that enrich each other on their knowledge and charing humor. Just right!
I used to live in a townhouse, when I was a little kid. I thought it was great. No one above or below you, close knit community. I thought the neighborhood looked prettier then separated wide ass houses. No driveway but we had some grass in the front yard, and even a small backyard so there were places to play. Best part was, we lived on a dead end road so no one drove onto our road but the residents. Essentially allowing us to play in the road in relative safety. Made snow days great too, big pile of snow. Unfortunately there were no local markets or places to go so rip
"A 15 minute car ride becomes a 2 hour commute" Yep, around where I live it's a safe assumption that every 10 minutes in a car becomes 1 hour on a bus. Maybe all the squiggly bus routes make sense in some computer model but what if I just want to go 10 miles in one direction?
This for real. As bad as vehicular traffic is where I live (Southern California), if I wanted to take public transit to get anywhere, the time and logistics I'd have to add/deal with don't make it any better.
MStonewallC My family moved into a suburb of Pittsburgh in 1950. My Dad took a bus to his job at the Steel Mill on the Southside of Pittsburgh. The Bus line was operated by a suburban bus line. My father bus route went directly to his job, and took about 15 min. In 1966, the county created a Port Authority Transit. First the Port Authority combined my father's bus route with another bus route. My father's trip to his job now took 45 hr. In another 5 years, the Port Authority combined 3 bus routes together, and it took 1 hr & 10 minutes
@@PjPerez Vehicular transit includes buses... What you want are subways and trams. Stockholm is a prime example of a city where bicycle/scooter > subway/tram > car > bus > walking.
Grew up in Lakewood too. I've been raving about the infill project of Belmar for a minute. I really think its one of the strategies to address the sprawled burbs of most US cities. Write your mayor, counsel person and go to a planning meeting people! Especially if you're young, changes to zoning and the urban fabric take time, like 5+ years (still waiting on a two way bike lane on South Broadway in Denver to be complete).
@@ellenhawkins128 infill is a term to describe building density back in. In the case of Belmar in Colorado it’s building a mix of condos and apartments alongside retail and commercial in a tighter arrangement. Another infill project you’ll see often is taking surface parking lots in downtowns and turning it into buildings
Having recently done a small renovation, I could not believe how much waste there is. From plastic wrapping to a bunch of glues and paints to the containers that are used. The waste is staggering of the building industry. If we want to stop climate change why is the Govt allowing such easy monetary policies to encourage these practices. For what future will all this spending and building be for???
I notice this everywhere with everything. It astonishes me that people don't see a problem with it when you just look at the waste coming out of one store in one day. It's gotten to the point where I don't like buying anything anymore.
Amen to that. Overpackaging is a huge issue, and one that is ignored by the majority population unless they've been made aware of it. Over time, it seems we've all become desensitized to the amount of packaging everything uses, from vegetables wrapped in plastic, to gadgets coming in overly-ornate boxes meant to wow consumers. Once you notice it, it becomes incredibly sad how widespread the problem is and how difficult it is to get away from it. We have truly made this a plastic world.
Today mom bought some candies and the package was 1 large plastic package and inside every candy bar was wrapped in smaller plastic package, i literally made the same comment to my mom how much packaging have been used unnecessarily.
Why is the government spending money it doesn't have? Why is the government putting 30 trillion of debt onto generations of citizens not even born yet? Why is the government hyperinflating the currency and driving millions and millions of people into poverty?
I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think that I would like this video until it got to 15:24. I love driving, I'm really good at mapping roads and rush hour in my head, so this was never really a problem for me. At least not until my car would break down which would make me have to fix it. Making the car function properly again would make me understand and love cars even more. I previously lived in an area with lots of hills and roads so I saw biking and scootering as a waste of time. Plus, I don't know a thing about proper city planning. But now that I bike here on a college campus, and seeing 15:24 made me open my eyes dramatically. Music that you would find on frutiger aero edits filled my mind as the pieces of the puzzle that is this infrastructure came together. Then at then end of the video I now see that having my own house and driving is great and all. But there *really* is a better way to live. Even if it requires more walking and bike riding. Was the solution literally right here all this time? Was I really so stubborn that I forgot how good change can be? Probably. But either way I'm glad I stopped myself from clicking off the video near the intro. We really do need better city planning. Thanks. 👍
I recently bought a detached house, but it is in a city. The house was built in 1923 and I think possibly the oldest on the street. I love how I am within walking distance to so many things, and there is a bus stop right by. I can walk to a lirary, zoo, park, restaurants, the river, gas station, grocery store, convenience store, a college and a high school.
@@MyBelch 30 minute round trip to buy groceries or go to a park, sounds like a massive not waste of time for sure. If cities weren't so inefficient shilling out money to suburban housing that provides nothing for the city, they could spend more money on helping homeless people off the streets so they wouldn't be "setting up camps in your yard or sh!TTn on your sidewalk" (never seen either of those happen)
@verygoodbrother No BS he's spot on. The shit is getting out of control everywhere. I love the suburbs where you don't have to walk over used needles and human feces.
Mixed zoning has the potential to create vibrant and dynamic urban spaces with a variety of housing, retail, and commercial options. It can also promote a sense of community and create a more integrated and walkable environment.
@@jalend9974 Thank you for your answer. I have a couple of solutions that can help, if there should be a problem with crime or poverty in an comunity. Community Policing: Implementing community policing strategies encourages collaboration between law enforcement and residents, fostering trust and a safer environment. Surveillance and Lighting: Enhancing surveillance systems and improving street lighting can deter criminal activity and increase safety for everyone, including low-income residents. Affordable Housing Mandates: Enforcing affordable housing mandates in mixed-zoned areas ensures that economically disadvantaged individuals can access decent living spaces and not be pushed out by gentrification. Social Programs: Investing in social programs, educational opportunities, and job training can uplift disadvantaged populations, reducing the likelihood of criminal behavior and improving their overall quality of life. Public Spaces and Activities: Creating well-maintained public spaces and organizing community events fosters a sense of ownership and belonging among residents, helping to prevent crime and isolation. Responsive Governance: Local authorities should be responsive to community concerns and maintain open lines of communication to address issues promptly and effectively. Economic Development: Encouraging economic development in mixed-zoned areas can lead to increased job opportunities and greater economic stability for all residents. I'm happy to see the awareness for this topic and open to have some more opinions.
"...and once it's asphalt, it no longer has the trivial quality of being able to absorb rainwater" I lol'd so hard. It's both hilarious and terrifying.
Is this a joke? The definition of a city could be "concrete, as far as the eye can see." Suburbs, by comparison, are often lush with trees, grass, and retaining ponds.
@@Lawrence330 Funny enough, most cities have more greenspace than most suburbs, and even the suburb greenspace consists mostly of very minimally productive grass that consume too much water and barely absorb CO2. Meanwhile cities have huge parks.
@ryanb No, I'm referring to a study of USA. All the thinly cut, unproductive turfland in the States put together is as big as Ohio. They grow more lawn than corn, and we eat corn.
@ryanb I'm glad to hear about your amazing yard and plentiful attractions. However, please note that makes you the exception, not the rule. Scroll over many comments and you'll see them filled end to end with people who consider suburbia being put under house arrest until you're 16, who have developed anxiety, depression and impaired social skills from such isolationism, who don't fancy the idea of having to own a 2 ton, carbon-spewing lump of metal that costs them hundreds of dollars a year to go anywhere further than their front yard if they don't want to risk becoming roadkill. And saying "if you don't like it there, just don't live there lmao" is kinda mean. I'm not saying suburbs are necessarily evil, as people such as you like them, I'm just saying that giving people literally no other option between an overpriced concrete box in the city or an even more expensive clapboard in the suburbs is criminal. Ever wondered why the last time USA was the happiest nation on earth was the mid 20th century? Stuff like this is why. And no, the people complaining isn't only 20 year olds with no plans for the future, it's everyone; teenagers, youths, families, people too disabled, poor or old to drive, so on. And the corn was just a comparison, I don't see why you're so mad about it.
People forget, as you get older, driving becomes problematic. Having a way to socialize, get groceries and such in walking distance, can be a boon to elderly people as well.
As someone who finds zoning laws and people's opinions on it to be very interesting, I'm always disappointed to see when a video covering the topic is only 20 minutes instead of 2 hours
And as someone who's not all that interested, I'm glad shorter videos like this exist cause I don't know if I'd have the motivation to watch two hours of it. I totally get there's way more to say, and the topic is way more complex, but it's better than nothing. Education and knowledge need to be accessible too!
It sounds like we could solve the affordable housing crisis while simultaneously slowing the environmental crisis just by abandoning our antiquated zoning laws. BROTHER!
We could solve it if colleges stopped indoctrinated their classes to see everything through the lens of racism and climate change. I gave up half way into this video and there was still no actual discussion on suburban planning.
@@inorite4553 And unfortunately NIMBYs in this case may very well be people worried that if their property value goes down their mortgage will be upside down and they'll lose their house. It's a system where even if you're with the "in" group in a lot of ways you're being held hostage, and I'm not sure where to even begin untangling it all.
I live in the Bay Area, and I have been aggressively pushing the idea that bad zoning laws are aggressively ruining the lives and opportunities of the working class.
It depressing that all the city hall meetings tend to be held from noon to 2PM when I’m at work. I’d love to show up and advocate for change, but it definitely feels like they intentionally did this to ensure that I can’t. Guess I’ll stick to sending monthly emails to my reps for now…
@@Praisethesunson they might, I’ll have to look into it. I’m still new to all this. Only recently called my governor for the first time about a policy and was praying the whole time that no one would pick up haha!
And if THAT wasn't enough, check out the Not Just Bikes side of the video right here: th-cam.com/video/cO6txCZpbsQ/w-d-xo.html
I was wondering if Not Just Bikes' older video was the inspiration for this one! Cool to see you guys doing a collab! Your 2 channels are some of my favorites!
Congrats on the Master's, it's cool to see your intros update
Using The Netherlands as an example is nice and dandy and pleasantvillian, BUT it`s still a most car centric country regardless of how much bikelane/close-proximity and public transport it has.
Also The Netherlands is one of the absolute key countries for helping bad companies keeping doing bad things, our climate impact may be bigger than the rest of Europe combined because of that.
Not to mention delivering oil products to German factories. and absorbing the climate impacts for them.
is the piano at 4:20 Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me"...?
You should talk more about the effects of climate change and drought on cities around the world
Walkable neighbourhoods cut DUIs too. Walking home tipsy is one of life's great pleasures. You feel like you're gliding.
And you sober up a little in the process, so the hangovers are not that bad...
@@Posiman yes plus great for the local kebab shop economy!
@@Rumade Kebabs are scientifically proven to taste 300% better once it's 2am and you're totally wasted and high as a kite...
biking through amsterdam while drunk or high (i expect is illegal... meh) is the absolute bomb and i challenge any suburban brad or karen to prove me wrong.
@@rednaxelA11 Depends on where you are. There are zones where public intoxication is illegal, but there are places where it's not explicitly illegal
i moved to the japanese countryside 2 years ago, and one thing that's shocked me is how i still live in a walkable community while being in a super rural location. my town has about 2000 people and is surrounded by rice fields, but i still have a grocery store, post office, bank, 2 bars, a train station, etc. within a 10 minute walk. i don't have a car OR a bike, i live in the middle of nowhere and can still walk everywhere, it's awesome
Wish I could do that in America. But no, we nnneeeddd cars.
Sounds like my favorite game Harvest 🌙.
My dream
Adopt me?
Thats almost like Koknese. A town where I grove up. Main road besides highway was planted with big Oak trees. In thunderstorm the lightning would wreak havoc there.
As an Irishman, not having a pub within walkable distance would be a problem (it is in rural Ireland) because drink-driving is a major social and lawful no-no here.
where is it not a no-no????
@@leonpaelinck Spain, France, Australia, Turkey, Libya, parts of USA.
@@leonpaelinck where the fuck can you drive drunk??
@@DerekTJ It is definitely a no no in Australia - massive fines and a lot of random breath tests by police. But totally fair point about walking to the pub lol.
@@DerekTJ you’re making shit up.
I’m a structural engineer, and I have designed a lot of buildings that contribute to sprawl. I don’t have any say in the form of a building itself (that is up to the architect), but I make sure buildings won’t fall down in the presence of wind, earthquakes, heavy snow, etc. In many ways, I feel like part of the problem in America‘s urban development. Your video gives me hope that America‘s urban development problem can be fixed by passionate, courageous people in the next generation. Thanks for putting the effort into research to educate viewers. I will look into attending a zoning meeting in my area of the midwest, US. Perhaps in this way I can make a difference.
Fiction that includes that can be fixed?
Whats that mean?
Designs need to include safety features in case neighbor has guns. Is that possible?
As a Dutch person I would like to stress that, while we do let Jason live here, we do not in any way or form condone the concept of a bag of milk. This is 100% Canadian madness.
Glass bottle of milk plus cold = glass fragments in your milk.
@@RandyTWester Thats why we have milk cartons here in the Netherlands
@@henkjan673 Boom. (as in; now his face is red, not as in tree in dutch)
Milk cartons and containers can’t be stuffed in random spots of the fridge.
Bagged milk stays fresh.
As a former architect, every zoning meeting we went to dropped our IQ by 3 points.
oOoOO, storytime?
I almost mistook your comment as "as a former anarchist" still good comment.
So in it like a Facebook group but in real life
Hahaha... I was a city planner and your comment made me LOL! There were times that I felt the same way 😂
😂😂I bet you wanted to say something like this at the end of the meeting?
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Billy Madison : Okay, a simple "wrong" would've done just fine.
As someone from the Netherlands i could not believe there are places where you cannot just walk to a grocery store nearby and worse be completely dependant on a single mode of transport. That's insane. What if your car breaks down? You must beg to others or call a sevice on the spot wasting money and loads of time?
And forces the elderly out of their homes if they lose ability to drive even if otherwise they could live independently
same, i have never lived more than a couple minute's walk away from the next store
Many American families have more than one car
Oh no, this is America. In this land of opportunity, you can also starve. I mean you could bet on one of our many social safety nets catching your fall
*Pause for laughter*
….and then feel free to add wishful thinking & prayer to your arsenal of things that won’t change the underlying problem.
Yeah. We’re the richest country the world has ever seen. The US is leading the world in number of billionaires per capita [735 total as of 2020], Millionaires [21.95M as of 2020 - or 8.8% of US population], the worlds only Trillion dollar company [Apple, now a multi trillion dollar company], and bankruptcy & housing foreclosures caused by medical debt [62.1 & 56%, respectively - both from 2019, although I’m sure the pandemic helped both those numbers and access to social services]
We also have crumbling infrastructure, an absolutely baffling lack of high speed rail, and access to mental health which can charitably be called “Piss poor.”
Throw in a frankly disturbing need for a large percentage of my fellow countrymen to shout “We’re number 1” or “USA, USA, USA” like it’s an incantation to ward off intelligence, and a foreign policy best epitomized by a larger child punching a smaller child and ta-da, you’re just hero worship of the founding fathers away from being in the Good Ol’ U S of A.
I am eager to see the day when the corporate sponsorship hits the next level of ironic honesty and we scrape off the words which no longer encapsulate who we are, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses….” to be summed up with, “Sell us those who will join in the commoditization of all life, and let the highest bidder dictate the terms for the rest.”
But, in fairness, the last couple of years [Decades?] may have made me a touch cynical. Your mileage may vary.
Cheers!
Your entire country is the size of a tiny state. Of course there are less places in the US where you can walk everywhere, but there are still plenty of places you can do that. However, owning your own car and having the ability to drive anywhere you want is a freedom that I severely missed when living in London and Paris. Europe made me feel powerless and trapped. Of course that's due to growing up in the states, but still.
So nice to see you young people well educated and conscious about these ridiculous issues and talking about it. You are the generation that could stop this non-sense.
Don't forget that you are too! Every voice pushing to improve things for everyone contributes.
Man, we just want a place to live!
> Whines on TH-cam
> Contributes nothing
@@user58541 Why are you describing yourself?
Fun fact malls we're originally intended to be mixed use walkable zones. So using an out of business mall for this is very effective and appropriate
Wow good history!
Needs to be walkable from home, not jusg from shop to shop
Still can't walk or bus there, if so, expect 45 minutes to 2 hours to arrive.. and if walking? No need to go to that "out of business mall", you've already done all that walking halfway there. 😂😂😂
Walking makes Americans vulnerable....
I remember buying a microwave oven soon after I moved to NYC and nearly dislocated my shoulder while bringing it home on the subway.
I realized then that there is a limit to the amount of stuff people who live in cities can buy if they have to walk home with it. Unfortunately the car is very good for many retail.
I wish they would increase the soundproofing requirements in apartment buildings , to make living in them less awful.
That is such a good point and I wish this was something people talked about more
yeah i live in a medium sized town and have seen some new 4-5 story apartment buildings which is good, but they are always “luxury” apartments yet very rushed at the same time
While we’re at it, let’s crack down on sound pollution period. Or at least enforce the damn law on noise violations; motorcycles with no mufflers; cars and trucks with modified exhaust systems designed to make them louder; and boom cars. I know that has nothing to do with your OP other than apartment dwellers also having very little insulation from outside/street noise, as well.
@@annascott3542 Oi, f off. Leaves the cars and motorcycles alone.
dunno where you live but here in Slovakia, every new apartment has soundproof walls... its not super fancy tech, its just bit different concrete.... you still hear noisy neighbors but way more muted.... oh, and its not even a regulation, its just modern way to build buildings so i wouldnt worry about that
This video got me to start a Strong Towns chapter in my area. We’re campaigning to reform zoning to a form based code, and fight for pedestrian safety across southern NH. Thanks rolls
Wishing you luck!! This is a wonderful idea:)))))
Find an Urban planner to support your chapter. Good luck with it!
A river never runs a straight path for a reason. It curves back and forth to balance a math equation. To create an equilibrium. The river is naturally making itself longer, to find a equilibrium.
Just like we need to build homes "longer" apart. But not too far apart.
Building too densely creates the rent trap and creates dependents on public transportation. And creates insane traffic. Next comes an insane infrastructure cost.
And what's wrong with owning a home and owning a car? I love it.
What's wrong with building a soft density to where the traffic is moderate, no one is stuck in the rent trap, and no one is dependent on public transportation?
Most new suburbs going up around me are being built with oversized lots and not walking distance to a store. They are passive income investment homes. Being built too spred out, and ALL are gated neighborhoods, where you have to go through a guard.
They are not building them in any kind of supply and demand equilibrium.
I want my landlord arrested for racketeering. The rent trap is not a equilibrium. While my landlord gets that gated neighborhoods.
Arrest supply side economics people. The river will find its own path. Supply and demand math has a equilibrium.
Now. Supply Side economics says build apartment buildings.
Supply and demand says build single family homes.
@@noel7777noel Car companies lobbied the government to build car dependant cities and it eventually became illegal to build anything else. Free market is a bad argument that lets car companies off the hook for their influence in te government
@@handsfortoothpicksMy mom choosing to buy a car every 3yrs is demand side economics. And I want her predatory lenders arrested for charging my mom interest rates.
EVERYBODY LOVES cars. Supply and >DEMAND
I managed to get my mom to sit through this whole thing. She’s never been very interested in this kind of topic but found the video funny enough to subscribe at the end of it. Thanks for all the time you put into these, it makes a difference
I love everything about this video, but what I love most is the "magic of editing" mismatched cut. That is just perfection
'...'agic of editing
Alright, cool, you understood and liked the joke. But now, did you understand the video? Can you project yourself mobilising people, friends and family to, not only raise awareness, but act against climate change ? Even if that means changing the layout of your neighborhood, changing food consumption habits and being extra annoying in youtube comments about it? ahah
Yeah the joke was good, but that's not essential
@@whtvr2378 lol
Bag of milk 😑😂
@@whtvr2378 You are literally preaching to the choir
I surprised a bunch of people by how Germany has such small fridges, because it’s so convenient to go to the supermarket. When I told them I had two within a 5-minute walk and 3 in a 10-minute walk, they were like :O WHAT?!
A bunch of north americans. Nobody else is that silly.
Wow, I never thought about it like that. I just assumed the big American fridge was part of the whole "everything is bigger in America" thing. But yeah, we have shops close by here (NL) as well, and big fridges aren't a necessity either.
@@BramKaandorp Yeah, this contributes as well to the massive scope of preservatives in US foods as well. When your food has to last for two weeks, it has to last for two weeks, whether that means tons of preservatives or not. My ex was floored by how quickly things spoiled here, and I was like… STOP BUYING TWO WEEKS OF FOOD!
Where else do I put my 5 types of salad dressing, 2 dozen washed eggs, and 5lb bag of carrots?
@@puellanivis yup. My father lives in a village near Münster (or more like outside of the village) but even he has at least one store for food he can reach in 5-10min with hte car.
It's so frustrating. I literally live about a ten minute walk from an active shopping center with grocery and other shopping and restuarants. But because of bare to no sidewalks and a major cross junction, it makes it absolutely dangerous to walk there. Also there are no bike lanes, so forcing car use.
I agree it is very frustrating. I live less than 2 miles away from two different shopping centers with grocery stores and for the same reasons I don't feel safe walking or biking to either one.
I have a feeling car industry lobbyists have something to do with that.
@VaderxG not sure why you chose my comment to respond to, but I wasn't talking about why things becoming a certain way in the past. I'm talking about how it's taken so long for things to change even when the people are ready for it to. Plus, that's a weak argument considering most other developed nations do way more for public transport and accessibility than us for the same reason. Our government let's companies vote with their money.
Car and oil lobbyist are a massive part of the problem. If you don't think they know that adding sidewalks and bikes and even going for more centralized living doesn't hurt their industries then you haven't been paying attention. It's not a conspiracy, it's just the truth. I mean lobbyists jobs are there to either keep or change things to better their employer's business. That's literally their job. Sure our addiction and dependence on cars was a cooperative spiral but the way things are now isn't. I didn't vote for my housing costs being well over half my income for a shitty one bed in someone's basement. Those people with money are the ones making the decisions and trying to frame them as empathetic for wanting short term profit is a little uncomfortable, no? When the few actively make worse the lives of the many things are no longer sustainable. The ultra wealthy are bleeding the population dry and this is only one part. I'm sure they have all kind of justifications they like to tell themselves but they know what they're doing. They may be oblivious to the harm, but that's willful obliviousness. If you want to be under paid corporate shill for your life, be my guest. I'll keep being here waiting on the older generation to die so the younger people can step up and hopefully put forth actual change. First, with stripping corporations of their voting power. Corporations aren't people ffs.
@@hotarubinariko I think the older generation was once the younger generation, but when they got older, they changed their minds. Not sure why you think the younger generation will make different choices once they are in charge.
@@theoverunderthinker I don't think every generation thinks the same though. There's a theory that generations often think in a 4 part cycle. Often in a reflection of the decisions of the last generation and how much wealth is available. How accurate that is, I don't know. But if you're right and our generation will become the same heartless, conscienceless boomers we have now then it's ok. Our planet will be uninhabitable in the next one or two generation anyway in that case, so humans will die out and who cares about money or affordable housing if there's no humans right? It's a bummer. I'd like to be a mom, but knowing things will just become worse for them is a hard pill to swallow.
Modern suburbs are the worst of both worlds. Not enough space to do something useful with your property, like a food forest. Yet everyone is still effectively piled on top of each other. Except for the grocer, walkable amenities such as shopping or entertainment are all just novelties that get old after a while. It's for those reasons that I choose neither and live in a rural area. That makes even more sense now since I can work from home many days.
I don't think people choose them for their idylic nature. They are like minivans, compromise. It's the cheapest way to live in a city. As you say shopping is all just a novelty after a while, so why pay double to live in the city? The prices are crazy.
Growing up in the suburbs is like living on an island where you need a boat to go anywhere if you cant drive.
That's why as a kid I rode my bike everywhere. It was awesome. As an adult I own a few cars and bikes. I can do either. I love the suburbs.
@@billbillerton6122 I think people over exaggerate how far they need to go to get something in the suburbs, because they often complain about how there's a walmart and starbucks on every corner.
I would ride my bike or skateboard everywhere. Now people have Uber that's faster and cheaper than a taxi, you don't really even need a car if you only ever have to go a few miles at a time to do shopping.
@@tjshultz89 yeah honestly do people like this genuinely think that suburbs are devoid of any industry? sure theres less shit to do but its not devoid of things to do
theres just not a bar on every corner and a copy paste italian bistro (this one has the best pizza in america we promise) 30 feet in any direction from any point
@@billbillerton6122right on point get a bike enjoy the ride. :D to a mall, to a park or a friend.
@Евгений Петров Cant enjoy the ride when Im forced to share the same lane as 2 ton steel boxes going 50mph because the lack of bike lane or sidewalk.
What baffles me the most about these suburbs is that they insist on making them COMPLETELY FLAT. No conforming to terrain, nothing. I live in a fairly car-dominated place in Australia, and almost all of the suburbs follow the terrain instead of bulldozing through it.
I lived in a very hilly/mountainous city in America that has a mostly square grid forced onto the terrain. There are several major intersections where the middle of the intersection is at the crest of a hill, so if you're turning across lanes you have zero view of oncoming traffic. And people have no problem speeding up a steep grade right into an intersection with their giant overpowered SUVs. There are very poor lines of sight in these areas created by not working around the terrain especially for seeing pedestrians. It's a major hazard
@@FloridaMan-ie6yk San Francisco?
Ive never been in an American suburb that was completely flat.
@@FloridaMan-ie6ykthe problem is the grid, not the terrain, just put a house on top of the hill instead and have the road go arround it
@algotkristoffersson15 Exactly. Sometimes they do that, but not always. It turns out that effectively planning a city takes way more finesse than the relevant authorities are willing to employ.
This is a very informative video for a non-American. It made me understand why some of my american friends on discord would talk about driving around an hour for good food or boba due to housing being so far from other facilities which is unheard of in my country where max i woud only drive MAX 20 min any more would be a waste of time.
That sounds amazing
Anymore than a 20 minute drive is a different town. I'm not doing that, if it's not in my town, it doesn't exist.
There was a point where I was driving over 215km round trip every day to and from work. Which normally if going 100km/hr to get there isn't too bad, but traffic is so congested all the time, it was about 90 minute to work and about 2 hours back.
I now live about 10km from the closest business that isn't just some random car shop.
Edit: I'm speaking about living in the US btw. Originally Florida now North Carolina
I have a 3 hr commute to and from school every day…so yea…
🙂
I remember a story by Ray Bradbury where they invent teleportation and people hardly ever go outdoors. People who liked walking barefoot in the rain were considered crazy. This story isn't far from what America looks like today.
What book is that?
@@jordangordan8980 , I wish I remembered. It's a short story, not a novel, so I doubt I'll recall
I love comments like this. So you never leave your basement? I assume that’s the case since I live in a suburb in an older part of town where there are parks and sidewalks and the parks and sports fields are filled from morning to night whenever the weather is even half decent. Don’t make assumptions based on your singular view.
@@GangstarComputerGod , when you go to do your no 1 or no 2, don't drive your SUV. Use your feet. It'll be faster than getting stuck in traffic
Canadian here. The bags of milk are used in conjunction with a re-useable milk jug that holds the bag upright while its in the fridge. The upper corner is cut allowing the milk to be easily poured with the jug. Once a bag is empty you switch out for a new one, the bags come sealed so you can store them on their sides. This means less plastic is used than a big jug (cartons are probably still better for the environment) and it takes up less space.
Whether or not it's better for the environment to have a carton or bag not not be what seems obvious. Cartons, to my knowledge, have a mixture of paper and plastic. While they may be using less plastic, the way that the two are combined makes both harder to recycle. Plus cutting down trees ain't the greatest. Really no perfect answer here, but just something I was thinking about.
@@DQABlack Reusable & recycled glass bottles, probably
@@madiis18account glass are the perfect recycling material for drinks. But sadly they break too easily as they are too brittle. Metal is also good. But you don't get the satisfaction of seeing the liquid. And if it's store for too long the drink would have a subtle metallic taste.
@@penguinpingu3807 idk there are thick as hell glass bottles that i've dropped on concrete floors that haven't broken. And when you break glass, it can still be recycled and turned back into a bottle.
Milk is available in reusable glass bottles from a variety of grocers in the SF Bay Area. There's a refundable deposit, and the groceries that sell them also accept them for returns. They're washed, sterilized, and reused. Plenty sturdy, just don't slam them around like plastic half gallons and you're fine.
The energy for washing may actually be more than the total energy for producing a new bag (economies of scale be crazy like that), but the glass is much more sustainable than the plastic. We can make more green energy, but we can't make more crude oil deposits.
Hi! I just wanted to let you know this video spurred me to find my city's city council meetings, thanks to the Google search terms you provided in the description, AND the zoning map! Guess what, most of it is R-1 zoning! I'm planning on going to one of these planning meetings and hopefully get something going...maybe even interviewing some local residents! Let's see how that goes!
would love updates (no pressure)!
Great that you take action! 💪
I hope your plans succeed.
We need more people like you! 🤗
Please keep us updated!
@Sofie Brammer That's right, take action. Destroy what little peace and quiet people living in the suburbs have and throw up shithole apartments!
Way 2 get involved, Wyatt. Thanks 4 getting involved! I'm also going 2 check this stuff out.🤓
I live in Warsaw, Poland and I would never believe I would one day see a benefit of living in a post-communist world made of apartment blocks. But now, after travelling a lot around the world my view has changed so drastically. I have literally 100 metres to the nearest metro station, train station, bus station and a tram. I can be in any part of the city in 20 minutes max. We have 10 shops within 5min walk, a 15min walk to the nearest opera, theatre, park, hospital, swimming pool, medical center, a freaking zoo and a trylion of restaurants. We see our friends every week. We go to a gallery during workdays. We eat out a lot and enjoy the hell out of it. I can jump out of work for half an hour to check how my son is doing at preschool. I can book a dentist appointment 15 minutes in advance. Spontaneity is our life, not a hassle. I still remember how powerless I felt when I lived in a suburban detached house and had to plan every activity in advance, or god forbid, ask for a ride to buy a stupid bag of milk (it’s a thing now Jason). Or literally risk my life trying to walk to the nearest mall (god I hate malls).
Wow
I might agree, were I a battery hen. th-cam.com/video/1eIxUuuJX7Y/w-d-xo.html
I feel bullied by your comment.
Please delete this
@@Ssm19494 Why? Am I not allowed free speech?
I’m so glad I grew up in a small town developed in the 1870s, the center of town was at most 2 miles away from the furthest houses and had several restaurants for kids to eat at, every Friday in the summer the street would shut down for kids to run around. Every branch of the town had its own separate park for kids to play at and college age kids were employed to play games with all the locals. It was fantastic.
Hyped for the most ambitious crossover event in history! Who would've thought - two of my favorite "The country you live in is absolutely fucked" TH-camrs - together at last!
Yes! The other day I was literally wondering why neither of these channels had released new content. I actually started to worry that they gave up.
Guess they were just taking a little extra time to polish off an extra ambitious project!
Climate: Not a town anymore
The best since Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Streets!
But don't forget that many other countries are utterly fucked too! In sooooo many different ways, in fact!
Whenever I get depressed about the weather in the Netherlands I watch Not Just Bikes to feel better for my choice.
As a Korean American who's lived in Korea for half my life, I miss the walkable neighborhoods teeming with life during night and day. Easy to just walk out for a snack, meet friends, grab a beer, go to work/school. If I need to, I could take the bus or taxi for to go some place a bit further away and the time is not different than taking a car. Most families own one or two cars, with most parking areas underground or in a separate parking building. There are definitely pros and cons for the dense urban lifestyle, but America just lacks decent urban areas so much that I miss it a lot.
Visit cities now. Google walkable areas and check out the walkable scores. Things are changing now. People are getting hip. Bikes are all over the place now.
im from australia and i find that, american city planners are just blind and think that the only way to decrease traffic is too build another lane which in fact usually increases traffic. here in australia its decently walkable in the large cities, what is usual here is for there to be suburbs but the suburbs are close to services, plenty of ways to walk around atleast compared to america, free bus routes that loop, consistent train networks and lots of bike lanes. i find it kind of annoying how we are seen as a very low density country when in fact, our cities are more dense than most in america and the truth is that we really only live in 4 maybe 5 very small bays or ports on the coast. australia has city, then countryside closeby, then nothing for hundreds of kilometres.
Same bro, I lived in Yangju about an hour north of Seoul and absolutely loved living in a high rise and walking 10 minutes to the Paris baguette bakery and my taekwondo dojo as a kid
@@slicer2938 The major cities of America are more dense than Australia. I think sydney is less walkable then 5 top US cities.
@@slicer2938 Australia has terrible walkability. Even L.A. is better than Sydney when it comes to walking or biking.
This is not just American problem unfortunately. In Western Australia where I live, the urban sprawl here is almost out of control and the public transport is not good enough. And each time there is a new apartment proposal, a lot of the locals will go Not in My Backyard! I envy places like Tokyo with their walkable suburbs and excellent public transport.
Hello fellow west Aussie.
Boomers tell me an hour drive is “not very far” for my low income job yeah sure “not very far” adds up
There’s no “local” jobs, I have to drive to work, yet the price of having a car is rising. Public transport would easily 2X the time I would take to get anywhere. I’m already time poor by being born with disabilities and having poor time management 😂
Unfortunately my work is easily done online but people NEED to micromanage people at offices
You cannot compare Asia countries to Anglo-Saxon countries. The reason Japan can do this is because it is Pseudo-Homogenous meaning that all the Koreas Chinese and Hafu asians that live there cannot be easily discriminated against. Look at every law in America that you saw in the video and you see why public transportation in places like Australia and the US sucks. Its better to look at other european countries that colonized as well.
@@kofiboateng9181 Singapore.
It is a very diverse country.
You have Chinese, Malaysian and Indians all in one place.
They also spoke very different language to each others.
Tho, English is majority.
@@Commievn That is what I was getting at with the Pseudo-homogenous! I am not implying that every asia country is the same, but there is a shared history amongst the groups culturally wise, which is where the indifference in those countries come from. That is the same as the US but the dynamics is difference within the nuances of how these differences are projected onto the masses. In Far East asian countries, it would be easier for most East Asians and some South East asians to mask themselves in society up until they speak or someone sees their name, which is not the case in America for obvious reason! As you said though Asia as a whole is really really diverse. More diverse than the US to be far, but the American concepts of diversity when it comes to people breaks down when it leaves the border of the US. That is why I had made the point when it comes to comparison!
@@DeepSeaLugia I think Brisbane is a fantastic city to live in. Shame that all of Australia isn't the same.
I had a high school project where we were supposed to find a problem in our community, and propose a solution to it. I didn't quite understand the assignment apparently, because I did my presentation about the low density zoning of our suburban town, and everyone else did it on things like "Our school doesn't have urinal dividers!" and "This one road could use some streetlights."
I find it bizarre there's even specific terminology for "walkable", "livable", "human oriented" places. To me that's just what a city is supposed to be.
Spot on! In fact, it is the NA-style 'suburbanisation' that is alien to city development, if anything, yet force-fed down our throats.
Only in North America of course
@@hannaheric634 unfortunately many places use NA as the example. You see this type of development also popping up in europe and developing parts of Africa/Asia but it doesn’t have the same effect because it’s not ubiquitous
It's language that liberals use to define low border areas.
At some point, probably in the 1950's, Americans decided, "livable" cities are Communist.
While watching this, I kept thinking “that scenery looks like where I live. That neighborhood looks like neighborhoods where I live. That building looks a building near where I live.” And then I realized that this was definitely shot in Colorado super close by to my detached-single-family-zoned-home. What a coincidence! :) That doesn’t often happen while watching TH-cam
I, too, live in Colorado and immediately recognized it.
Same here 😭
Yeap I lived on one of those streets, it is Solterra in Lakewood, Colorado. A neighborhood built in a special district and poorly planned location.
Did Cartman, Kenny and the gang live near you?
@@MushookieMan I am the real cartman
Something I know is that you do not have to cut down all the trees to build a suburb, in fact you can leave most of them up and just build the houses in the forest. It makes for a very beautiful neighborhood with lots of nature. Yea there will still be streets but you can leave woods with bike trails in between the neighborhood blocks, connecting everyone to neighborhood pools and parks and markets/stores.
But companies like to save money and time and cut all the trees down and then half ass try to deal with the inevitable flooding that comes because there’s no more trees to absorb all the water.
neighborhoods built like that are indeed very beautiful, but they come most of the time with a very hefty price to live in. and that's not just because of how desirable they are. building a neighborhood as such would mean even more spending towards water, electricity and natural gas (if applicable) infrastructure, that being compared to the already massive price tag of maintaining the infrastructure of the typical car-centric suburbia. it's nice to live in one, but definitely not something that everyone can afford. and if the government would start subsidizing these places like they do with typical car-centric urban sprawl, we would not only be moving the problem but also reinforcing it. providing modern utilities over such a large surface area is not cheap in the slightest. especially for water, since when you make a pipe network larger, you are significantly increasing the maintenance and running cost of not only acquiring the water, but also getting it to people.
the main problem with american public planning is land allocation. way too much is going towards single family home packed suburbia, way too little going towards city commercial center or high density residential areas. this car centric philosophy is also leading to every single business requiring a massive parking lot in order for customers to actually arrive there, leading to very inefficient use of commercial zoned space. on the space of one walmart + parking lot, you could fit an entire commercial center housing tens of businesses, bringing in so much more tax revenue and value to customers and nearby residents. in Europe, this would be a pretty dumb proposal, because if you have a massive supermarket complex somewhere, that likely means that the land is cheap and undesirable for residency. but in America, this is often not the case. there are many acres of parking lots in places where, under different zoning laws, people would pay a lot for a home or a business there. just look at Houston, urban downtown commercial lots just wasted on parking space. and it used to be so much worse, they've recently ammended their minimal parking requirements since they realized they fucked up. just look up a picture of downton houston in the 1970's, and you'll see what I mean. even today it's still really bad for modern city standards. compare that to an aerial view of basically any major european city and try to find a parking lot that's the same size or bigger than surrounding lots allocated towards something else
Another thing that won't help is that if you get a neighborhood that is not very green, and you want to make it greener, beware HOAs which make it possible for you to be unable to plant over a certain amount of trees in your home.
Obviously, it's not mayoritavely important but it's something to at least take notice.
My streetcar suburb hood in Philly is like a city in a forest! 120 year old huge trees cover the streets, more big trees on my city block alone than in most city park in the USA. It's funny I still work freelance in NYC but my home in the suburbs is one of the first street car suburbs just across the river from downtown Philadelphia, love it, just wish not in the evil empire, but otherwise the best.
Trees dont soak up much water at all
@@randomchannel50 loblolly pines do
I hate having to drive everywhere
My bf is American living in the suburbs and I’m from Norway. Whenever I visit him I’m baffled that we need to jump in the car to get groceries. First time I was suppose to visit he said he would be at work one day I’m there and I said «well that’s fine I’ll just take a walk to the mall» he laughed so hard🥲 I’m so happy I have 3 grocery stores walking distance from where I live lol and nearest mall is 20min away by walking😅
When I lived in a Swedish suburb of 10,000 people, I had a mall, 2 schools, a bus terminal, 12 different bus stops, countless stores, restaurants, and parks, all within a 5 minute walk.
I now live in an American town with even more people and the farthest I can walk is to my mailbox. What's a bus stop?
.. Yep! Do you believe? That is the #1 reason why obesity in the US is rampant.
do you just lug 2 weeks of groceries around a major city? thats absurd to me "hmm yes I need to buy some frozen chicken but I didnt bring something that allows me to get from point a to point b fast enough to avoid the chicken sitting in the danger zone for 20 minutes+ this is definitely 100% the optimal way to exist"
@@girthicusmaximus The thing is, when you live near a bunch of small shops that are within a few minutes of walking/biking, you do not need to go on biweekly shopping sprees stockpiling on everything you might need for 2 weeks. You just grab a few things here and there, maybe while you're out for a walk, maybe while you're coming home from work. Out of bread? Just pick some up later today when you walk your dog. Or when you meet your friend. No need to pay for gas, + you get fresh air and stay active.
I understand this lifestyle can be hard to comprehend when you've lived your entire life driving a car everywhere, but it really can be so much more convenient than having to drive every single time. Btw, if your city is actually designed well, you usually won't have to walk for 20 mins just to pick up some chicken.
How do i move to Sweden? Everyone from Sweden is lowkey flexing in the comments!
I don't own a car here in Finland, because finding parking in the city that's both affordable and does not have a car is far more inconvenient than just using public transportation. The idea that every single business has their own parking lot is one of the most insane ideas anyone could come up with. I like the atmosphere of the city centre where I can walk or bike around and find cool new places or shops, and replacing that by sitting in a car to go anywhere is really ass-backwards
Thats really cool and interesting that you got born in a better place than me
It’s honestly super annoying. And there’s not always good walking options so you’re basically forced to drive or walk on a small sidewalk next to a huge busy road.
Hey, how's there with snow? Cause here in Vyborg, only 30 km away usually very walkable streets have been turned to crazy terrain, when snow falls, then melts, then falls, then melts, then there is very cold few days, then warm ones... Too much ice on sidewalks and snow and icicles hanging dangerously from the buildings
Another Finnish person here. If you don't live in the middle of Lapland wilderness, the few times when you absolutely do need to get somewhere by car, it's a lot less hassle and costs less to just call a taxi if you can't get a friend, a coworker or a relative to give you a lift. Also calling an ambulance will not bankrupt you, if ER is where you need to go.
Unfortunately, at least Helsinki still uses minimum parking requirements for most new developments. I wished they'd let the market decide and not force developers build more parking than there's demand for.
As a European, this video honestly blew my mind. I had no idea that THAT'S why single-family homes are so incredibly common in America. No offense, but living in the suburbs and not being able to just walk to the nearest store or...anything, honestly, seems like a nightmare.
Seems more like barracks or prisons to me.
@@arnodobler1096it’s not
@@darthmaul216 but unfortunately without a car
I enjoy living in a rural area but it does suck having to drive 15 minutes for anything. If I were to live in town I'd really prefer everything being walking distance.
Car and oil lobbyists have a foothold in politics. They want the American consumerism to rely on vehicles and gasoline. Really cities in the northeast and outlier cities like Chicago, Miami and San Francisco are pretty walkable. New York City, Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Providence, Philadelphia, and Washington DC if you ever want to visit.
I lived in a residential area in Mexico it was almost entirely single family homes but every street had individual homes selling different things. My neighbor sold frozen bananas and ice cream further down the street was a house that had a small convenience store in the front room. I didn’t need to drive for food and it was essentially a suburb.
See, we used to have this thing that was more compact than a suburb, yet less dense than a city. It was called a village or small town. Typically, people would live where they worked, and thus have easy access to the services of their neighbors.
I mean...they still exist
@@night6724 Because zoning rules prevents them from doing that. Zoning rules are currently dictating how people should live in the majority of North America.
@@night6724 the Left has declared that to be racist, apparently.
@@k1m198 This has nothing to do with dah left
@@night6724 That's the point of doing away with these zoning laws.
I lived in New Zealand for a few years, and one of the things I miss the most was not needing to drive. I had a car, but I hardly used it. I saved money, lost weight, could go to the bar if I wanted, and actually enjoyed driving again because I was using the car to go on trips. I would explore the city just by walking, and I saw so much that I would have otherwise missed.
Literally where in New Zealand public transport is AWFUL if you don’t live in Auckland or chch
@@kayleebrown2900 I lived in Dunedin. Like I said, it's quite walkable, but there are buses that serve the whole city and outer suburbs including Mosgiel and Port Chalmers; they even have WiFi on board. The bus was free for a while because of covid-19, and it's still cheap now. Driving is effectively optional.
Public transport was pretty awful when I lived there. There's one shitty train-line between Wellington & Auckland which was often impassable due to landslides (because all the forests were cut down). I lived in Whanangui and Palmerston North and cycled as much as I could, but I found it was pretty hostile for cycling too. And you had to wear a stupid plastic hat because of the stupid anti-cycling attitude they had/have that means it's against the law to go cycling without one.
There's some video essay somewhere also pointing that American suburbs don't make sense not only "merely" in terms of certain conveniences, and reduced environmental damage, but also in terms of finances, with suburbs not paying for themselves, tax-wise, and so forth. And also not covering their maintenance costs, requiring further developments in a somewhat pyramidal-scheme.
NJB covers this in a vid. Basically the development of suburbs brings in a huge influx of tax dollars but over time the infrastructure, meaning a road and sewer and water and electricity and internet running to EVERY SINGLE HOUSE must eventually be replaced and upgraded. And the property taxes for houses would be absolutely through the roof if all these long-term costs were factored in.
They aren't, but the people in the neighborhood need these upgrades, repairs and services, so either the neighborhood has enough influence ($$$) and essentially bankrupts the city by demanding these services without changing property taxes of course to offset them. Or it falls into disrepair and becomes a "low income neighborhood" or "blight" (black).
I believe the video is by Economics Explained, and rather than pyramid scheme, it is a Ponzi scheme.
@@fasolakid1 it may be, but I guess it's from some of those "anti-suburb" youtubers, like "Adam Something" and "not just bikes," but maybe someone else who'd maybe appear on their recommendaions. I'll see if I can find it. ... here, it's from "not just bikes," "Why American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme [ST03]"
I think economics explained did an excellent video on that topic
It's american dream to be stuck in suburbian hell where you go from closed space in your house to closed space in your car to go to closed space in shop/work and back to closed space in house
If you go walking outside you get harassed by a Jordan Neely so that's why America is designed this way. It's a far cry from the all white northern European countries.
They actually did the same exact thing to what was once an old mall in my town. They leveled it and developed it into a bunch of shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and mid rise apartment buildings. It’s a great concept, and it would be cool to see a whole town based on this model and not just a single part of town.
No one wants to raise a family in those places.
Giant mall redevelopment is always so interesting to me, because outside of adding residential, all the same elements are there (retail, dining, etc.), but repackaged in the way they originally were before those malls dominated North America in the 1980s and 1990s.
Exactly
yes, building up like Europe where housing is above mixed commercial compresses the total travel foot print to essentials. surrey has the elevated light rail
As a german i always loved the american suburbs in movies. But i can see how you always need a car to drive anywhere and it is a really inefficient way of living😅
Yeah, poor people hate it.
@@agnes8679 You're right that America needs more amenities within walking distance of housing, and that large, detached homes aren't a problem per se. However, the demand for detached homes in America is vastly exaggerated, and certain alternatives are ignored completely - people just jump to the conclusion that it's either mcmansions or commie blocks, and nothing inbetween. In much of the UK, for example, the most common neighbourhoods you'll see are rows of (mostly single family) terraced houses with modest front and back gardens. These places vary in style, some have more trees than others, etc, but they are almost always very pleasant places to live, and they are WAY denser than detached housing with big lawns. That density is a large part of what makes them so great, as they put you close enough to the town/city centre without meaning you have to live in an apartment (which, while there's nothing wrong with it, is less appealing for many).
@@agnes8679 I agree, given how excessive everything in US can go then those big housing blocks would be much worse than suburbia- in there You atleast have Your own back yard and quiet (if lucky) front street where kids can play.
MetalTiger88 As a german these places always looked like shitholes to me
@@phyz2892 I don't want a small garden, front or back. I want a house with green rolling hills, no fences (it's not a castle ffs) and no neighbors visible from my property. Peasants can only dream.
I wish more towns where like villages with a central courtyard and market place.
Dudette, same.
Sounds comfy
Where would you work, how much money could you make? Most villages are poor. Maybe, with work from home becoming more accessible that could change, but only for certain job types. Someone has to actually do physical work. A plumber makes more money with many customers, something a village doesn't offer.
realistically, america just need take a page out of our book in europe. i've seen multiple videos of why europe is designed way better than anywhere in america and its really shocking how inconsiderate they are towards children and people without cars. unless you own a car or have money for taxi's every day, you literally have to walk 30-40 mins just to get to the nearest playground, supermarket, or public transport. america is set up in a way where everyone has to spend a stupid amount of money for basic everyday things. want that nice house you've had your eyes on for years & worked so hard for? well here it is, but its 17 miles from the closest amenities & if you have kids there is nowhere for them to play besides the road out front, or your own back garden. need to take a trip into town but don't own a vehicle? expect a long ass walk or an expensive taxi ride as there is rarely a tram or bus system within these kind of neighbourhoods. ordering a takeaway for the family? expect cold food when it arrives. broke your leg? ambulance will be with you in 25-40 minutes.
i live in birmingham, england. i have 3 corner shops, a huge retail park (shopping centre) with anything anyone could need to live an entire life, 3 petrol stations (gas stations), about 7 takeaways, 2 primary schools and 1 secondary school (2 kindergarten & 1 high school), & at least 1 bus stop on every single road, all within a 10 - 15 minute walk from my front door. america is too focused on their looks, being the prettiest it can possibly be, instead of being as people-friendly as possible; like a gorgeous woman who hold no accountability for silly and illogical actions, and blames others for their own mistakes lol.
@@retiefgregorovich810 idk, we have villages in Ireland and it kinda works, old planning styles from when the english were settling Ireland means there's a fair few of these courtyards and sometimes farmers markets. It kinda works, there's quite a few local shops and local economy though i can't say they're all doing that great but i mean there's a lot of tradies out there still working even if they only operate in villages and small towns
I'm so hooked to these urban development videos. This is my first time watching a Climate Town video, but I was already subbed to all the other channels mentioned at the end of this one before I got here. lol. And Not Just Bikes was my gateway into this realm. These videos fill me with a sense of hope that there are actually people out there fighting and advocating for real, honest-to-goodness change for the better and that maybe things can actually improve. I get lost in imagining these wonderful would-be cities and it just gives me the fuzzies. I love this content to an almost weird extent. lol. And now I can't stop playing Cities Skylines. xD
This video was recommended to me today. It's completely different from what I tend to watch. However, YT was absolutely right to recommend it to me because I found it fascinating and learnt a lot for myself. Thank you for making it.
Glad you found him! I like that he’s a nice change of pace from other climate channels. Little bit of humor to help the doom and gloom go down more easily.
Glad he’s been blowing up the last couple months!
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A functioning public transit system
Same here
Just be careful. This channel is very ideologically motivated
If you listen carefully their politics will become painfully obvious
I'm currently the youngest person elected in my town council. Hope this counts and I'm doing my best to advocate for mixed use developments and walkable/bike friendly infrastructure.
Advocate for public transport too!
Not all heroes wear capes
@Joi W. Send you some patience, perseverance and a sprinkle of humour.
Damn, that's great! Best of luck!
It'd be funny if that were true but you were also 57.
I grew up in a densely populated region in Germany and used to take public transport and walkable neighbourhoods for granted. Whenever I moved, I chose well-connected neighbourhoods with supermarkets closeby so that I wouldn't need a car. In my imagination, suburbs with single family homes were for "wealthier people". Watching videos like these, I suddenly realize how priviledged I actually am. Everything I need is just within walking distance - I could even walk to work if I wanted. And there is a lovely park and forests closeby. I'm not sure if people realize how livable and vivid this place is. They ususually emphasize the downsides of urban life.
I grew up in a city . The second I turned 18 I moved to the country.
Urban life is completely unbearable .
Just the constant stress and fear .
@@avancalledrupert5130 Your fear is due to fear mongering from the media which plays up crime. Crime has been going down for decades and cities are much safer than they were thirty years ago. If you think urban areas have to be scarry and stressful, just look at some of the smaller villages in Europe. They're small and quiet, but everything is still walkable to a downtown urban core. When I last travelled to Europe while visiting Bruges rented a bike and took a beautiful bike ride through the country side on safe bikable backroads from the city to the town of Damme. Damme was small and in the country, but still walkable and dense when it needed to be. Taking a trip like that anywhere in the US is literally impossible. In the US if you want to get anywhere in the country you have to deal with zero walking or bike infrastructure, walking even to the store you generally have to deal with insanely dangerous country roads with speeding cars, poor sidewalks often covered in broken glass, and no crosswalks. I've lived in a city for a decade and I've never been in fear. On the contrary, I grew up in a souless single-family home suburban hellhole. It was the "nice" part of town too, the more rural parts were the drug infested dangerous areas. True story, one country road was adopted by the KKK and it got taken away because they weren't cleaning it up. In the development I lived in there were no sidewalks, the nearest business would take an hour to walk to on streets that people would drive 40mph, and my trip to school was an hour long bus ride. As a result I felt isolated, lonely and depressed. University was an eye opening experience. I lived on campus and I walked everywhere, it was amazing and I loved it. After college I moved back into suburbia and hated it. I had no where to go, the only thing to walk to was a gross retention pond next to a busy stroad. Now I live in a walkable downtown neighborhood and I'm so much happier. I walk way more, I live a five minute walk from a K-8 school for my children, I have multiple parks that I can walk to and even more that I can bike to. I've never felt more unsafe than when I was trying to get a summer job back home during college and I had to cross a huge intersection just to get to the bus and almost got killed multiple times trying to walk to a bus stop because cars are fucking dangerous. If you don't like walking, more power to you, but at least be rational with your fears because you have a much higher chance of dying in a car crash than from inner city crime.
I don’t like living by other people though. They are too loud, inconsiderate etc. I also don’t like carrying grocery shopping back by foot because I like to buy a lot at once since I have a larger family. It’s just different preferences.
@@avancalledrupert5130 Nothing wrong with country living if that's what you want. But city living in the U.S. deserves better public transportation, safe and walkable side walks for pedestrians and have conveniences like bakeries, shops and grocery stores in walkable distances. And not just cities, but towns as well. Should be no reason for there to be towns with food deserts and crappy or non existent public transport to get food and essentials.
@@toulouseberlioz910 The Food Deserts exist because of the lack of honest, quality patrons -constantly stealing and making other ways to annoy their betters. Totally the result of lowlife behavior
The problem isn’t access to stores and dinning within walkable distances - it’s the distance to employment. If working remotely replaced all office work, this type of living would be more feasible. Having a car gives the flexibility to work anywhere within driving distance and not limit employment opportunities to areas nearby. Two working spouses amplifies this need as it makes it even more difficult to live near both spouses place of employment. In addition, 30 year loans with changing interest rates and high fees to buy and sell lock you into a location and are obstacles for relocating if employment changes. I live in the suburbs and live a 5 minute drive to grocery stores, gyms, shopping, dinning, multiple parks and within a 10 minute drive of all our kids K-12 schools. The problem is It takes a 45 minute drive to get to work when I could work as efficiently from home (and do once a week). Instead, I have a manager who flys in from Chicago every other week and we still hold meetings on teams despite being in the same small 6000 sqft office building. My previous employment was 35 minutes away in the opposite direction.
Bags of milk are actually the most environmentally friendly way of packing milk. They use 20-30% less energy and produce 20-40% less greenhouse gasses according to research done at Dalhousie University. Also no on just pours milk out of the bag, we usually put it in a reusable container.
Except for the pthalates that break down in the bag and get in the milk
not usually lol, always :P
Sir, you are evil. Milk is constipating.
@@BandGGaming cartons and jugs have the same problem tho
@@BandGGaming polyethylene bags shouldn’t be leaking phthalates though?
My dad works in planning and zoning. He's been saying this kinda stuff my whole life. It's genuinely frustrating.
maybe you know what particularly the people on the opposite side of argument said regarding this or they just ignored your dad for no reason?
I’ve only had two memorable interactions with zoning before just completely putting it out of my mind. It’s undlessly frustrating and you can’t do a single thing about any of it.
@@FumblsTheSniper watching Notjustbikes has made me wildly aware of how shitty planning around cars is and thus made my commutes worst.
@@FancyUnicorn I haven’t drove in five years. An absolute waste and I am far healthier for from the walking/cycling/skateboarding to get places. If only I cared about money I would be saving a ton of it.
@@FumblsTheSniper sure, there's an argument against everything I'm about to say, but ultimately: money buys comfort, security, and luxury. Having it is better than not... you may not care about money, but do you want to ever take a trip somewhere? Treat your family out to a nice sushi dinner? Own or rent nice expensive toys like boat or jet skis? How about a house? Things cost a lot of money and continue to cost in maintenance/upkeep and taxes (property tax etc.).
Just some food for thought, if you don't care and are just happy and content to be alone in a tent in the woods surrounded by rotting alcoholics and toothless tweaker thieves, hey, more power to ya!
I hope you don't "not care about money" because you are a trust fund baby... lucky...
American suburbs is where culture goes to die. Literally everything looks the same no matter what city you’re in and nothing is walkable. Now our European friends know why we are in awe every time we go to Europe with their dense/liveable cities and diverse public transit options
Can't put a price on freedom tho ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Yes, it's so strange too, because we (Anglo-westerners) tend to think we have a greater fight for preserving heritage and character, and distinct regional identities.
In fact, our cities are some of the most uncharacterful because of the way we limit the permeation of spontaneous local culture and practical, natural and organic réponses to challenges, instead categorising into such rigid things which only work for some things, but are far too restrictive on the natural evolution of people's impact on where they live, and also happen to destroy the natural character of everywhere because you no longer have to build so challengingly to suit climates.
In architecture, the temporal aspect is closely intertwined with the spatial, and they are all social constructs.
If you own property, you don’t want thousands of renters in shoebox apartments reducing home values and increasing crime rates. Zoning is to protect the haves from the will never have anything’s. Personally I don’t want to live in a building with no yard, no place to grill food, no garden, no personal pool. I like my neighbors whom we share food with from our gardens, I like that we don’t have screaming neighbors in the next room, playing loud music, with doors slamming. My neighbors are quiet, and friendly home and land owners. Screw that idea to box people up like sardines nonsense. I like to go to my backyard and enjoy the peace, or sit in my big living room crank up my theater and enjoy a movie or concert online, or go for a morning swim. And my home makes me money.
@@obijuan3004 Sounds like you'd like the idea of what's being proposed. In fact, it'd be even easier, and the tranquilisers of pure suburbia would be exemplified.
The only way you would experience change is if you lived in an inner-city suburb, or right along a major transit corridor, or a potential local centre (in which case you would either participate in densification, or move a bit further out, etc.)
Those are all negative stereotypes of higher density buildings, and they don't exist pretty much in wealthy countries where medium density is the norm, like western Europe, which have some of the best suburbs too.
If you had standardly-designed terraces, you'd actually have better insulation and better soundproofing, and you could more easily fill in your private gardens with hedging and trees.
And neighbours change, it doesn't matter where.
And if you pair increased population of lower income people, a welfare state, and safe accessible transport infrastructure, you get so many benefits.
The poor are actually normal people, like you or me, and it is the neglect which drives the unfortunate minority to take saving measures themselves. A basic universal income would help people out of poverty and into jobs; if you give money to the poorest, they will immediately add and produce in the economy, whereas even if you gave millions to the wealthiest, they'd just save it up or be able to spend it overseas.
Good transport infrastructure would also help to reduce crime. And higher density is not associated with crime, as with all developed countries, like Japan or Finland (who builds 50% of housing to be social and to house homeless, and are the happiest country), and more people out on the streets means that children are safer, because those people act as secondary guardians, and as a bonus, children get to develop independence and experience freedom free from major dangers that could end them in one tiny accident (this is why the Netherlands, which standardises this infrastructure, has the happiest children, way happier compared to the US or Australia).
(And yes, your copy-paste gets a copy-paste reply, even though this one was actually before, I just saw it afterwards)
Basically, you would not lose anything, so you have nothing to fear. It just opens up the choice of living on a spectrum of wide choice, and, you may even be able to have suburbs closer to the city, because there are less suburbs to push out the suburbs.
Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing.
@@obijuan3004 nice, soulless life
When was a kid in 1994 I remember riding my bike through a construction that was about to have a cul-de-sac built on it. The neighborhood was built within some months and are now falling apart. Particle t&g siding is mostly rotted, roof shingles are curling and are needing to be replaced, foundations are sinking and bowing. I couldn't imagine being one of the saps tricked into buying one
I want to be a part of the outstanding group of individuals that bring back trains, community and walkability. Yours, Alan Fischer's, City Beautiful's and other activists' videos have motivated me to pursue education in urban planning, house management and landscape architecture. I can't wait for what I find! Thank you for all that you do! 🌻
holy sh!t you just made me realize there's some hope
@@corneliusthecrowtamer1937can’t wait to walk in the 100 degree weather in Los Angeles While taking the train with a bunch of homeless people that piss and shit all over the train.
At the future ♥️
This is the future
I’m glad city planners in the mid 1800’s got their shit together, literally.
Funny!!
@@night6724 that doesn't sound like a zoning act but, anyway, it was a sewage joke, silly.
@@night6724 you cold blooded savage lmfao
@@night6724 And white people. Were lynched. Who cares though.
as an urban planner this video is outstanding.
I was always a city girl , and when I go out to the area where my son lived I freaking hated it and could not wait to leave since I could not drive ,
I was the same way. Now I will not move back to the city.
After living in Japan for a year, I yearn for reliable and convenient public transportation and bike able neighborhoods. I lived in the boonies but I could just hop on the train and head into the city center no problem. Man, I really miss it and my bike :(
I don’t wanna head back to US! Haha
Just move to one of the major cities in the USA, where 80% of the people of the USA live, and you'll find that again.
@@neutrino78x LA is a major city but public transportation still SHIT. #basically
@@donde6961 "LA is a major city but public transportation still SHIT."
Why do you say that, I can get around LA just fine and I don't know how to drive. Have you tried using your Maps application on your cell phone to tell you what bus/light rail to get on?
Public transit sucks everywhere, it's typically 3 times slower than a car if there's no traffic, including in Amsterdam, the famous land of transit (according to people on youtube). Same for San Francisco which is a very compact and walkable city because it was a big city before cars were invented.
But I haven't noticed transit being any worse in LA than it is in SF or SJ.
@@neutrino78x having lived in LA and Tokyo, comparing the two is a joke. The public transportation in LA is so slow and unreliable compared to Tokyo. I can get from the equivalent of Long Beach to Westwood in 40 minutes in Japan on one train and less than $3.
PLANNING...that's the operative word. I live in an area that used to be farmland. Granted, 20+ years ago when we moved here, it was to move into a single-family home in a small subdivision. For 20+ years, it remained a somewhat quaint, quiet area...accessible stores, no traffic, low crime, countryside...just a great place to live. Then, folks in the city started to catch wind of how nice it was out here, and they started moving here in droves. Now...I'm not so much against that if -- IF -- anything that resembles PLANNING (there's that word again) is done before just throwing up another cheap subdivision to quell the masses. Everything is sprawled very far apart, in some areas there aren't sidewalks so you can't safely walk or ride a bike to the store...you're required to get in a car to get there. Multifloor apartments are right next to single-family subdivisions, stores are plopped down into areas that make absolutely no sense, etc. Traffic is now terrible, stores are now packed at all hours of the day. There's virtually no "land" anymore...it's all homes, roads, and stores. You can't go outside without someone's dog barking at you...and there's an almost never-ending wailing of sirens...someone getting pulled over by the cops, an ambulance, a fire truck, etc. ALL.... THE....TIME. I love well-planned communities, where just able everything is walkable (or at least bike-able)...but our city planners must've missed school on the day they taught actual planning. I've gone to planning meetings before, and they're an exercise in futility...one Karen trying to out Karen another Karen. I don't have much hair left, I fear that continued participation in these meetings will result in absolute and complete baldness. For these reasons, we're exploring our options of packing up and moving somewhere FAR away (within the next 5 years) far from anything that might succumb to urban sprawl in OUR lifetime.
Lets go back a couple thousands years. Do you really think you could live in those conditions of yours last 20 years? This living type is a byproduct of an unsustainable way of living. The reality is that you humans need to live together to make it work. Living alone in much too big house is a failure and only works because some slaves elsewhere are paying the price for it.
It didn't used to be farming either. All the European changes to the land are bad
@@EarendilTheBlessed i don't think you read his comment properly. he emphasizes the lack of PLANNING and accessibility
I love in a town that is going through zoning law changes. It's interesting to witness. Many of the older people in our town are against the changes because they fear their property values will be negatively effected.
Many people have their entire retirement hinging in their property value. They expect to cash out once they hit 68. This has caused two things:
- less affordable housing for younger families.
- tension between old people and young people.
- an end to neighborhood based schools.
- over inflated cost of houses.
yeah, those fuckers are all going to dump their mcmansions to downsize into more realistically sized housing and price out all of us young people that are trying to buy what little affordable houses are left.
I feel for those people, I really do. They have spent their lives benefiting from a system that nobody of our generation will get to enjoy. And everybody wants to live a happy comfortable life for them and their family. Thats normal for anyone
But at a certain point saying "I want to keep my mcmansion so I can comfortably retire in florida while I watch the world burn around me" stops being quaint old people and starts becoming dangerously selfish to the survival of our entire planet
@@racekrasser7869 Most prices are dramatically rising due to flippers (all those flipper shows) and financial groups discovering they could make more money through quickie renovations and high rents over what they had been doing for a living. We just tried to sell a house to a friend only to get blown away by how much the house had appreciated. Poor guy could no longer afford it so we had to keep it as we sure didn't want to sell it to a flipper or a corporation.
These people don't understand that making zoning better and creating livable, walk-able neighborhoods will not tank housing prices, but will make their hoses even more desirable for wealthier families that want a singe family home that is inside those types of livable, walk-able neighborhoods.
@@grantmccarty2536 This is so true. I live in a highly desirable part of DC and the row houses and detached houses in our neighborhood go for millions now because they're close to metro and a great mixed use commercial strip.
If I need bread, I walk to the bakery, If I need tomatoes, I go to the town popular market, If I need a tool to fix whatever, I go to the little store in the corner... and all walking. ~ #México 🇲🇽 ~ 💗
Tengo Celos.
@@lcomfort8683 🐣💖💖💖
This video actually made me want to attend a zoning meeting. Definitely did not expect that. But, I live in a van so that probably wouldn’t go over well.
You live in a van because you believe the garbage this guy spews out. If this guy was really concerned about the environment he would be in Mexico China and a ton of third world countries where they straight pour toxins into the earth and air and think nothing of it! FACT Suburbs are trying to be destroyed by liberal new world order elite democrats who want you to own nothing and be happy. OWN NOTHING think about that while you sleep in your van, Why is a house 70 grand and a truck is 80 grand and the house takes 15 years minimum to pay off while the truck takes 5? ITS A SCAM ALL OF IT, designed to shove you into a horrible neighborhood and make you dependent on the system to live. They will come after you van and camper folks soon. They'll make it illegal to stop anywhere for more that a couple of hours. Walmart has already stopped letting campers park overnight...
No, please do. The fact that so many people can't find affordable housing to the extent that van life has become a trend is a symptom of this whole problem, and your voice deserves to be heard. Bring some friends along for support if you can. Democracy works by solidarity and engagement. There are a lot of people abusing the system right now, and those people are trying very hard to convince the rest of us that democracy is already dead. Why would they be working so hard to take voting rights away if they weren't afraid of what democracy could do to the status quo that serves them so well?
I'm in my camper. I know this stuff, since,1970. I'm waiting for the country to get moving and rebuild.
No you absolutely should! We need a huge shift in the demographics that usually attend these meetings. We need younger folks who will be impacted for generations by the changes they are making today. And not just people who are worried about their property values. Even if you live in a van you are still part of your community. You definitely have a right to speak on the development of your town or city. It should work for you as well as any other member of the town.
hahaha, someone not paying taxes into the system and who owns no stake wants to go rant about how they think it should all be run. Gold.
I love this style of educating on issues. Enough humor/pop culture references/randomness to keep anyone engaged. THIS! This is how you change minds and hearts about these important issues.
11:08 ... the best... so relatable...
Wholeheartedly agree.
The "the magic of editing" cut is one of the funnest things I have seen for a while. Beautiful work Rollie.
Anytime topics like this get brought up around my grandparents and older members of my family, it's like talking to a brick wall.
Arent they slaves and will be kept as them until theyre dead?
Didnt you learn how to lie about the methods of torture required to make and keep such slaves?
I've lived in both eastern and western europe, always in a city. And I've even stayed in tiny little villages in eastern europe for a notable amount of time. The idea that you can't get to a supermarket or some other form of business in less than 10 minutes of walking is fucking ridiculous.
Ironically I grew up in the bible belt and the closest store was a 10 minute walk. Granted I did live in the inner city.
Glowing I was a kid in the suburbs of Portland Oregon we had a small corner store that everyone went to. We need to bring back small stores they were very very common! Why did you return back to the US?
@@anthropoceneclimatechange245 i didn't lol. I just grew up under y'all's cultural influence. I've never set foot on that land
Here in czech republic even the smaller village is expected to have some form of """""""village center"""""" with at least some amenities ...like a mini-supermarket, post office ...so on.. Like... if czech pensioner doesn't have supermarket in a WALK-ABLE distance of 10 minutes from their home ...lord... you are up for a Shakespearean tragedy theater performance...
@@AuroraMeditation Here in Bulgaria the bare minimum is a medium room sized convenience store with a table and some chairs outside. Along with a bus stop.
Oh boy, the moustached intellectual extraordinaire makes a triumphant return. Very excited to watch this video!
yeap , me to :)
So glad I’m not the only subscriber that was wondering why he hadn’t released anything lately. I got so excited when I saw the notification!
You mean Hulk Hogan right?
@Charlie Beckwith lol
@Charlie Beckwith I live in a suburb and I enjoy it. But I do acknowledge how unsustainable and unfair it is. Laying down utilities for spread out suburbs is expensive as hell, and the cost is subsidized by the federal government/more efficient urban areas. Cities get paved over with giant freeways and wide roads to make room for Suburban people to visit businesses. Basically, urban environments pay for us to live in the suburbs. I think if the true cost of a single family home was passed on to people who live in them, then this problem would sort itself out.
But really the waste per capita of suburban people is insane.
Zoning Meeting Inspiration Story:
I went to a city council meeting in my city and they were discussing a new development. The developer wanted to build something like a 60 unit apartment building. He provided parking for 1.32 parking spaces per bedroom, but the zoning required 1.5. The developer had done a study at another nearby complex he owned showing that the demand in the area was actually 1.12 spots per bedroom and so 1.32 should be plenty. The City Council was still all worried about the parking and then when public comment came up, I and one other dude commented and explained that we thought the parking shouldn't be an issue. We were in the target demographic and both of us had one car per household and assured the council that it wouldn't be an issue. After that the council decided that they would write up some development agreements stating that the developer would be responsible for restricting its residence from bringing too many cars which would make the development acceptable to build. It felt like such a win. Going to council meetings can totally make difference.
YES go to council meetings! They're interesting, and they're one of the best ways to enact real change in your community without needing to protest or use up a lot of time.
Good for you!
People don’t realize this is how democracy works: through participation!
Democracy dies when people expect others to do the work and get disenfranchised when nobody does. That’s why most of the world, including The Netherlands by the way, is getting less democratic.
Thanks for doing what you do!
We have similar requirements on parking in Sweden, which I think is insane. If you need to legislate like that, at least put in things like weather protected bike rooms. Having your bike chain frozen solid occasionally makes you dependent on other means of transportation.
Oh, so it’s situations like this that explain why developers over build in communities and they’re over run with cars along the streets. Who wants to live somewhere with cars lining both sides of a narrow street? Thanks for your contribution. SMH
Did something similar concerning a proposed appartment block at the end of our road here in Real London. The appartments are located near suburban commuter station and would be high value but were too small; studios and one beds. Not condusive to a stable residential population. I had my say. The building is now almost complete, and it is all 2 or 3 bed appartments. I am sure there were other pressures but it felt like a victory.
People who buy bags of milk usually live in places where homes have special containers for it that you pour it into. You do not keep it in the bag
When I was a young kid, I use to think why don't other countries have houses like the US. I use to think they were weird. Now, I think the opposite. I think the US is weird for building tons of houses all spread out from each other, where you need a car for everything.
A structure marketed as a home is made to harm in specific ways. Other harm is still required to make and keep [citizens].
Less harm here, more harm there. The death camp systems been wireless.
What? Having a house is great. That’s not a bad thing. That’s definetely a pro of america by far
double digit iq comment
These videos always bring a wave of depression at the thought of a dystopian future/present with hope ever dwindling by the day, and I'm always so excited to watch whenever a new one comes out.
Complete disagree. The bit of his childhood at the beginning sounds great. Enjoy your shit garbage soviet bloc housing and eating bugs in the city. At least kids in the suburbs will see grass.
@@droptableaccount1820 Oh yes, it's so shitty that ya'll walk thru Europe like it's f'ng Disneyland when you visit.
@@droptableaccount1820 Soviet blocs are great. Everything is accessible. Schools, restaurants, shops, pharmacies, and parking lots are all accessible within a 10 minute walk. They have parks as well, you know. Let the kids socialize.
Much better than you car-centric suburban dystopia.
@@ianhomerpura8937 with expensive petrol & electricity 😂👌
@@ianhomerpura8937 nice self snitch lol proves that these “climate believers” are just communists
We moved into a walkable neighborhood and LOVE IT. We are in Louisville, Kentucky and these areas are hard to find. We moved in 3 years ago not realizing how this would change our lives. Sidewalks for walking, riding bikes, walking the dog, and walking to the stores/ restaurants/ banks/ gas stations. We got one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood.
The Louisville area is highly underrated for walkability and biking around.
I'm confused. You ride your bike on the sidewalk? In a dedicated zone or just with the pedestrians? Here bikes belong on the road, if there is no specific marking on where to ride it.
🤣 so you can walk to the gas station...what do you do when you get there...😜
@@ltdees2362 Well, I ride my bike to the gas station when I need gas for my lawn mower or chain saw. So, there's that.
@@ltdees2362 It's pretty sad that you can't think of any activity that doesn't involve riding around with several tons of metal.
We got an old, small semi-detached in Canada and were in disbelief at how lacking the insulation was! You'd think good insulation would be a priority for a house up North.... It took a few years of teeth grinding renovations but we got our home fully and properly insulated and a good quality heat pump. The difference in monthly electric bill was several hundreds, and we no longer FREEZE in the winter. Now I'm working on turning our useless front lawn into a beautiful edible garden, hoping more people in the neighborhood might join in on the trend. One of our neighbor was dubious at first, but now that we share our bounty with him he's def grown a positive view on our unusual looking front lawn.
I witnessed this "bag of milk" phenomenon on a trip to Quebec. They don't stack the bag in the fridge. The bag goes into an empty pitcher like most Americans would use for homemade lemonade. They just snip the corner off and pour it off the cap.
And the bag is actually one of the most efficient ways to package milk.
I’m from Québec and never realized that wasn’t a common thing until I moved away. We never bought cartons.
i have never seen something like that, "bag of milk"!! 😂😂
We had these in the 70's/80's in South Australia. I don't know why they changed it.
Wait won't it go bad
I'm in a small Oregon town that has seen a revival of its downtown since the single family zoning laws changed. It's been incredible to see the investment dollars come in to build higher density, mixed use buildings. The "city" is finally feeling livable.
Personally I don't like living in a high density zone but people gotta live where they can I suppose, wherever is affordable. Stuff like that is built for profit, not for human comfort.
Glad you like it, but millions of us don't. We like our burbs.
Suburbs are the death of many things, mainly quality of life. Astoundi g how many people don't see this
@@ArminiusVicious ive lived in all 3, city, suburbs, rural. Suburbs are "just right".
Oh yeah well with multi family housing unit comes crime in diversity that’s why we want our suburbs white and diverse free because it’s safer
A few years go I moved from a "colonial suburb" to a mixed use urban neighborhood in a different metro area. 2 years later, after not needing to drive anywhere, I ditched my car. On the rare times when I can't walk or use transit, I use a ride hail ... and my transportation budget is much smaller.
Within one mile, I have 6 supermarkets, a couple of drug stores, museums, theaters, and more restaurants, cafes, and small businesses than I can count. I can walk 2 miles through city parks to my office.
My neighborhood has a mix of 100+ year old single family houses, duplexes and triplexes, old and new mid-size apartment buildings. The houses are expensive, the multi-family units are not. The crime rate is lower than the city average. The large streets are being restructured to be more pedestrian friendly.
This is in America ... I'm in one of the cities that eliminated single family zoning. It's not perfect, but it's getting closer.
Where?
@@theGiver3 Clues:
The city eliminated R1 zoning, and is mentioned by name in the video
Our winters are cold enough to scare away a lot of people
I lost it at "magic of editing" and "William nilliam". I love your sense of humor.
I was all set for a borin lg informative video(nothing wrong with those) but you delivered something I can share with my friends!
One of the funniest moments in a recent Not Just Bikes video was when Jason forgot to shake the bag all the way down into the pitcher before cutting it open, and ended up spilling it all over the table. Classic, highly specifically Canadian, comedy.
I think it's just Ontario
which video was this? Now i gotta see it
@@adamnieuwenhout7699 I think Quebec also has bagged milk. But I know we don't have it here in West Canada
Ill testify for Quebec, we have bagged milk !
Haha, yeah. I've lived outside of Canada for 22 years, but watching him put the bag into the pitcher I was 100% anticipating him to bang it twice on the table before opening it. And then he didn't, and hilarity ensued, but I was doubly amused that "bang the pitcher" is so ingrained in me even to this day. :)
I was hung so heavy on “bag of milk” and I was telling myself “don’t be the guy they keep saying you are. Let it go. This is a random video on TH-cam, let it go”, but I was willing to keep moving. But you came back. Gave it precisely the attention it deserved, and I felt absolution!
As a Canadian I found that comment so funny & had to rewatch it to find where he said "bag of milk" because it was just so natural for me I didn't notice.
Yeah, in Canada & Europe our milk comes in bags.
Im an American and this threw me off way more than I want to admit. I was honestly wondering if he was trolling lol
14:50
Wouldn't a bag of milk be better for the environment? So it would be the opposite of urban sprawl.
@@WitchMedusa and then the Canadian Geese cameo, classic.
@@ChadCoulter I think cartons are better than both.
I love what you're doing and I want you to continue to do it forever. (or until all problems are solved)
I agree, just be careful on wednesdays
Leftists have no solutions for these problems
WheezyWaiter in the comments? An internet legend!
High density urban living doesn't have enough room for alligator pits!
@@kirkcavenaugh758 Did you watch the video?
The bags of milk come from when Canada switched to the metric system, but all milk jugs were in imperial measurements. It was a quick fix until machinery was retooled to produce metric containers. However I can tell you from living in Canada for a few years that the Milk Bags are pretty cool. You buy a big bag subdivided into smaller bags, and throw what you don't need immediately into the freezer to keep longer. You also buy a plastic pitcher designed specifically for the bags and cut off the corner of the bag to dispense. It works better than you would think. Here in Wisconsin you can buy bagged milk at places like Kwik Trip.
We don’t just need apartments. We need condos. People need the ability to own their home
Or, maybe it's got to be free.
@@patricialongo5746 are you also team housing should be a human right? Because same
I love the idea of Condos because they are less maintenance, but HOAs are total nightmares. They are incredibly inefficient and overly overbearing when it comes to rules and regulations. I want to own a home, not be ruled by an HOA.
in sweden you can buy a appertment and actualy own it
@@simedinson984 Same in the U.S.
The only building code needed is effective soundproofing in walls in all multiple dwelling units and hotels. Once those become embedded in public consciousness, aversion to density goes away immediately.
In my country we have sound regulations in the building code. For contact noise (f.e. Knocking on a wall, stamping on a floor) it is 54dB (between houses/apartments), for aerial noise (music, shouting) it is 52dB (between houses/apartments), between two rooms the noise level may not be higher than 32 dB and for installation noise it is 30dB (inside the house/apartment). So an AC, central heating pipes, sewer pipes, toilet flushing etc. may not contribute more noise than 30dB inside your home. So our houses are built with anchorless cavity walls (two walls not attached to one another) between houses or massive concrete walls or sand-lime blocks of 25 to 30cm (10 to 12 inch) between houses/apartments. And what we call floating floors in apartments. Those are sand cement screed on a layer of insulation (3cm/1 inch) on top of the load-bearing concrete floors. You almost hear nothing from your upstairs neighbors. All to keep the noise to an acceptable level in adjacent houses/apartments. We’re a small country with lots of apartment buildings and row houses. So lots of shared walls and floors. You really need those noise regulations otherwise you get screamingly mad.
This will always be the issue with large buildings in the US. If you want a realistic shot at making this a thing, people don't wanna deal with stomping and yelling neighbors. Until then sprawling will happen.
@@RealConstructor "You almost hear nothing from your upstairs neighbors." The "almost" is the problem. I'm on the autism spectrum, with the associated sensory processing issues, and "almost" isn't good enough. Throw in my risk-averseness, and you'll have to drag me into living in a city kicking and screaming.
(As in "I custom-build my PC with Noctua fans and a manual speed controller and choose parts based on heat output to get the in-room noise down" and "The physical sensation of wearing earplugs drives me crazy". I *need* a sanctuary where I can escape the noise for enough hours in the day.)
@@ssokolow I’m noise sensitive myself and I live in an older apartment, built before the building code noise restrictions. That is a challenge sometimes. Even with the house rules we have. No mechanical noise after 19.00 and no noise at all after 23.00 hrs. Luckily it is limited to sometimes. Most of the times there is no noise, only living sounds, like we call it. So you hear a toilet flushing, slamming of a door, hear the door bell of the downstairs neighbors, hear the upstairs neighbor walk with his shoes on the tile floor. That sort of noises we call living sounds.
@@RealConstructor Yeah, that still sounds like more than what I'm used to. No toilet flushing sounds, rare to hear someone walking overhead, door sounds within hearing range are almost nonexistent.
Also, for the periods when I'm nocturnal, I need to be able to ask those I live with to be quiet for 30-60 minutes to let me fall asleep. Hard to do that with people who aren't family.
Bag of Milk: This is wildly used in large industrial settings. I used to make ice cream at the Salt N Straw factory and all of the base/cream was in bags. This made it very, very easy to open and pour into machines or buckets and drastically cut down on overall product waste.
Otherwise, bags of milk were only good for throwing at friends.
Eggs are also self-wrapped single-serving projectiles
The bags are only for buying larger quantities of milk. You can only buy them in 3 bag packs (1L each), if you buy 1L or 2L at a time you buy cartons.
I've always assumed it's done to reduce plastic waste compared to American gallon jugs, but in a lot of municipalities they're not even recycled.
I live in Canada and bagged milk tastes better. Just saying.
Serious, non-rhetorical question: What if you had a reusable pitcher at home that you could empty your bag of milk into, then recycle the bag. Would we use less plastic that way?
@@Walkerxy I also live in Canada and do not have access to bags of milk. If you live in USA, you have alligators in your backyard, right?
In Switzerland the zoning is made in the way that older single family houses are replaced by high quality multi family housing, it allows to leverage existing transport infrastructure (e.g. increase train frequency) instead of having to build new ones. Land is also scarce. Within 15’ walk in a smaller town you can do groceries, go to the restaurant, get a haircut or reach a train station. Cars are mostly for weekend activities (and yet public transport goes even to the most remote areas)
Oddly enough, walkable communities are generally premium communities, even when the population density is much higher. See NY, SF, Las Vegas, etc.
Maybe that's a German thing but I think all of our communities are walkable. Our cities are designed in a way that no one has to walk more than 15 minutes to reach a supermarket.
It's a square design where you have a batch of houses and each side of a road and in the middle is a supermarket, a bakery, stuff you need every day. So everyone can walk. There are tiny villages with like 10 houses, they don't have one and need a car. But 90 percent of all Germans I'd say have walkable access :)
@@DerDudelino Hence the argument that European cities are just better than North American cities. As a Canadian, I don't think I have ever seen a truly walkable community. I have seen the odd cluster of houses near amenities, but it is a genuine issue here that you must own a car to live. Or if you live in a city centre, you are so rich that nothing matters. The Ontario government is trying to mandate higher density housing be built to support our housing crisis, but no small towns will accept that because they have this infatuation with keeping their small town feel. It's ridiculous that my home town with 150 000 people and suburbs for miles in every direction refuses to call itself a small city. We have the population of a small city, but none of the amenities. There are no jobs here, everyone commutes for an hour or so to work, and there are very few stores. On top of that there's like 3 grocery stores servicing the whole city, which means that less than 5% of the population can feasibly walk for their groceries.
The town council is all old white people that have lived here for years and refuse to see it for what it is. They fight tooth and nail against any construction that is above 3 floors, and god forbid there is an area that isn't sold to developers to turn into town houses. I hate where I live.
But a developer built NOW a walkable compact subdivision it would NOT get hi prices, new small houses and lots screams poor to people. Also, you can make the fanciest small engine car and people still want big, Lexus makes no small cars. . .2. I sorta disagree houses are bad cause they are not attached, little heat gets thru modern walls and heating is efficient, and instead basically a house is bad cause it tends to be big and take lots of material and Greens want us to live in tiny places, if you wanted the same footage in an apartment they would say No, be honest.even if you have lots of kids you can't find an apartment with as many rooms as a big house....
@@huntergibson9359 ... My theory is car focused system DO make it so 1 bad shop or 1 bad employer or 1 bad city is competing with many others since people can Drive further than could walk, so if 1 shop has rude staff just drive other way to different shop. And if 1 city started jacking up taxes the shops there cold just relocate to next city and still serve same customers... So there is a huge benefit to car systems ,, , I mainly say this cause see some City Councils turning very bad, imagine if in Germany if city country turned bad and overly taxed and badly managed shops and employers and people they all are stuck living under Tyranny and suckiness, so cat saves us from half the govt badness maybe Europe has , just a theory...
@@huntergibson9359 What does them being white have to do with it?
all milk comes in bags. They're called udders. They're also difficult to stack, and you have to feed them, so this bag is arguably an improvement on that, at least.
MY GUY
Unbelievable. Next you'll be telling me human breasts aren't purely for sexual gratification!
The original design also didn't keep long in the fridge.
Few things: 1) Thanks to Not Just Bikes for bringing me here. 2) Love the content. 3) I liked and subscribed. 4) City Beautiful is also an amazing channel. 5) I live in Aurora, so it was fun seeing you in and around the metro. 6) I could go on and on, but I’m just grateful for this kind of information. Feeling empowered to help make change.
City Beautiful has become one of mu favorites channels. I didn’t know about Not Just Bikes but also subscribed to it. I love these crossover between channels that enrich each other on their knowledge and charing humor. Just right!
I used to live in a townhouse, when I was a little kid. I thought it was great. No one above or below you, close knit community. I thought the neighborhood looked prettier then separated wide ass houses. No driveway but we had some grass in the front yard, and even a small backyard so there were places to play. Best part was, we lived on a dead end road so no one drove onto our road but the residents. Essentially allowing us to play in the road in relative safety. Made snow days great too, big pile of snow. Unfortunately there were no local markets or places to go so rip
"A 15 minute car ride becomes a 2 hour commute"
Yep, around where I live it's a safe assumption that every 10 minutes in a car becomes 1 hour on a bus.
Maybe all the squiggly bus routes make sense in some computer model but what if I just want to go 10 miles in one direction?
This for real. As bad as vehicular traffic is where I live (Southern California), if I wanted to take public transit to get anywhere, the time and logistics I'd have to add/deal with don't make it any better.
MStonewallC My family moved into a suburb of Pittsburgh in 1950. My Dad took a bus to his job at the Steel Mill on the Southside of Pittsburgh.
The Bus line was operated by a suburban bus line. My father bus route went directly to his job, and took about 15 min.
In 1966, the county created a Port Authority Transit.
First the Port Authority combined my father's bus route with another bus route. My father's trip to his job now took 45 hr.
In another 5 years, the Port Authority combined 3 bus routes together, and it took 1 hr & 10 minutes
@@jamesmooney8933 ridiculous
@@DJRenee it is all true.
@@PjPerez Vehicular transit includes buses... What you want are subways and trams. Stockholm is a prime example of a city where bicycle/scooter > subway/tram > car > bus > walking.
Grew up in Lakewood too. I've been raving about the infill project of Belmar for a minute. I really think its one of the strategies to address the sprawled burbs of most US cities. Write your mayor, counsel person and go to a planning meeting people! Especially if you're young, changes to zoning and the urban fabric take time, like 5+ years (still waiting on a two way bike lane on South Broadway in Denver to be complete).
What’s the infill project?
@@ellenhawkins128 infill is a term to describe building density back in. In the case of Belmar in Colorado it’s building a mix of condos and apartments alongside retail and commercial in a tighter arrangement. Another infill project you’ll see often is taking surface parking lots in downtowns and turning it into buildings
Having recently done a small renovation, I could not believe how much waste there is. From plastic wrapping to a bunch of glues and paints to the containers that are used. The waste is staggering of the building industry. If we want to stop climate change why is the Govt allowing such easy monetary policies to encourage these practices. For what future will all this spending and building be for???
I notice this everywhere with everything. It astonishes me that people don't see a problem with it when you just look at the waste coming out of one store in one day. It's gotten to the point where I don't like buying anything anymore.
Amen to that. Overpackaging is a huge issue, and one that is ignored by the majority population unless they've been made aware of it. Over time, it seems we've all become desensitized to the amount of packaging everything uses, from vegetables wrapped in plastic, to gadgets coming in overly-ornate boxes meant to wow consumers. Once you notice it, it becomes incredibly sad how widespread the problem is and how difficult it is to get away from it. We have truly made this a plastic world.
have we banned them single use Keurig cups yet
Today mom bought some candies and the package was 1 large plastic package and inside every candy bar was wrapped in smaller plastic package, i literally made the same comment to my mom how much packaging have been used unnecessarily.
Why is the government spending money it doesn't have? Why is the government putting 30 trillion of debt onto generations of citizens not even born yet? Why is the government hyperinflating the currency and driving millions and millions of people into poverty?
I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think that I would like this video until it got to 15:24. I love driving, I'm really good at mapping roads and rush hour in my head, so this was never really a problem for me. At least not until my car would break down which would make me have to fix it. Making the car function properly again would make me understand and love cars even more. I previously lived in an area with lots of hills and roads so I saw biking and scootering as a waste of time. Plus, I don't know a thing about proper city planning. But now that I bike here on a college campus, and seeing 15:24 made me open my eyes dramatically. Music that you would find on frutiger aero edits filled my mind as the pieces of the puzzle that is this infrastructure came together. Then at then end of the video I now see that having my own house and driving is great and all. But there *really* is a better way to live. Even if it requires more walking and bike riding. Was the solution literally right here all this time? Was I really so stubborn that I forgot how good change can be? Probably. But either way I'm glad I stopped myself from clicking off the video near the intro. We really do need better city planning. Thanks. 👍
I recently bought a detached house, but it is in a city. The house was built in 1923 and I think possibly the oldest on the street. I love how I am within walking distance to so many things, and there is a bus stop right by. I can walk to a lirary, zoo, park, restaurants, the river, gas station, grocery store, convenience store, a college and a high school.
I can drive to all those places within 15 minutes and I don't have homeless people setting up camps in my yard or sh!TTn on my sidewalk.
@@MyBelch BS
@@MyBelch 30 minute round trip to buy groceries or go to a park, sounds like a massive not waste of time for sure. If cities weren't so inefficient shilling out money to suburban housing that provides nothing for the city, they could spend more money on helping homeless people off the streets so they wouldn't be "setting up camps in your yard or sh!TTn on your sidewalk" (never seen either of those happen)
@@hayden6700 30 minutes is nothing.
@verygoodbrother No BS he's spot on. The shit is getting out of control everywhere. I love the suburbs where you don't have to walk over used needles and human feces.
Mixed zoning has the potential to create vibrant and dynamic urban spaces with a variety of housing, retail, and commercial options. It can also promote a sense of community and create a more integrated and walkable environment.
@@user-dj5fu5on7nmixed zoning has proven to discourage and alleviate crime. Make sure youre well researched before refuting something.
Vibrant, yes like crime and poor people everywhere, no thanks
@@jalend9974 Thank you for your answer. I have a couple of solutions that can help, if there should be a problem with crime or poverty in an comunity.
Community Policing: Implementing community policing strategies encourages collaboration between law enforcement and residents, fostering trust and a safer environment.
Surveillance and Lighting: Enhancing surveillance systems and improving street lighting can deter criminal activity and increase safety for everyone, including low-income residents.
Affordable Housing Mandates: Enforcing affordable housing mandates in mixed-zoned areas ensures that economically disadvantaged individuals can access decent living spaces and not be pushed out by gentrification.
Social Programs: Investing in social programs, educational opportunities, and job training can uplift disadvantaged populations, reducing the likelihood of criminal behavior and improving their overall quality of life.
Public Spaces and Activities: Creating well-maintained public spaces and organizing community events fosters a sense of ownership and belonging among residents, helping to prevent crime and isolation.
Responsive Governance: Local authorities should be responsive to community concerns and maintain open lines of communication to address issues promptly and effectively.
Economic Development: Encouraging economic development in mixed-zoned areas can lead to increased job opportunities and greater economic stability for all residents.
I'm happy to see the awareness for this topic and open to have some more opinions.
@@SugrivaTheApeKing Why is there more crime in cities than suburbs?
@@greenfaerie2039
Just because cities have higher crime rates, that doesnt mean suburb crime rates arent high
"...and once it's asphalt, it no longer has the trivial quality of being able to absorb rainwater" I lol'd so hard. It's both hilarious and terrifying.
Is this a joke? The definition of a city could be "concrete, as far as the eye can see." Suburbs, by comparison, are often lush with trees, grass, and retaining ponds.
@@Lawrence330 Take a look at most suburbs bro
@@Lawrence330 Funny enough, most cities have more greenspace than most suburbs, and even the suburb greenspace consists mostly of very minimally productive grass that consume too much water and barely absorb CO2. Meanwhile cities have huge parks.
@ryanb No, I'm referring to a study of USA. All the thinly cut, unproductive turfland in the States put together is as big as Ohio. They grow more lawn than corn, and we eat corn.
@ryanb I'm glad to hear about your amazing yard and plentiful attractions. However, please note that makes you the exception, not the rule. Scroll over many comments and you'll see them filled end to end with people who consider suburbia being put under house arrest until you're 16, who have developed anxiety, depression and impaired social skills from such isolationism, who don't fancy the idea of having to own a 2 ton, carbon-spewing lump of metal that costs them hundreds of dollars a year to go anywhere further than their front yard if they don't want to risk becoming roadkill. And saying "if you don't like it there, just don't live there lmao" is kinda mean. I'm not saying suburbs are necessarily evil, as people such as you like them, I'm just saying that giving people literally no other option between an overpriced concrete box in the city or an even more expensive clapboard in the suburbs is criminal. Ever wondered why the last time USA was the happiest nation on earth was the mid 20th century? Stuff like this is why. And no, the people complaining isn't only 20 year olds with no plans for the future, it's everyone; teenagers, youths, families, people too disabled, poor or old to drive, so on. And the corn was just a comparison, I don't see why you're so mad about it.
People forget, as you get older, driving becomes problematic. Having a way to socialize, get groceries and such in walking distance, can be a boon to elderly people as well.
As someone who finds zoning laws and people's opinions on it to be very interesting, I'm always disappointed to see when a video covering the topic is only 20 minutes instead of 2 hours
attention span. we're lucky it's not 3 minutes. long videos don't get clicks
@@BrianKrahmer I feel it's more the amount of effort required to make a feature length film vs a 20 minute episode is substantially higher
Well there are plenty of channels with many many videos and playlists to binge, so have at thee.
And as someone who's not all that interested, I'm glad shorter videos like this exist cause I don't know if I'd have the motivation to watch two hours of it. I totally get there's way more to say, and the topic is way more complex, but it's better than nothing. Education and knowledge need to be accessible too!
highly recommend checking out ecko gecko on youtube. He is a very small channel but has excellent videos on how blighted subarbia is.
It sounds like we could solve the affordable housing crisis while simultaneously slowing the environmental crisis just by abandoning our antiquated zoning laws. BROTHER!
Minneapolis has wanted to do this for years now. It's the NIMBY residents that keep stopping it.
We could solve it if colleges stopped indoctrinated their classes to see everything through the lens of racism and climate change. I gave up half way into this video and there was still no actual discussion on suburban planning.
@@inorite4553
And unfortunately NIMBYs in this case may very well be people worried that if their property value goes down their mortgage will be upside down and they'll lose their house. It's a system where even if you're with the "in" group in a lot of ways you're being held hostage, and I'm not sure where to even begin untangling it all.
Housing is only a crisis for some groups in society. For others, keeping housing stock low is a goldmine so they aren't interested in solving it.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 You don't lose your home just because you are in negative equity.
I live in the Bay Area, and I have been aggressively pushing the idea that bad zoning laws are aggressively ruining the lives and opportunities of the working class.
It depressing that all the city hall meetings tend to be held from noon to 2PM when I’m at work. I’d love to show up and advocate for change, but it definitely feels like they intentionally did this to ensure that I can’t.
Guess I’ll stick to sending monthly emails to my reps for now…
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet They Don't do their meetings via zoom? Do you can attend without the burden of going to city hall or putting on pants?
@@Praisethesunson they might, I’ll have to look into it.
I’m still new to all this. Only recently called my governor for the first time about a policy and was praying the whole time that no one would pick up haha!
I also live in the Bay Area and I’m grateful 😊
@@coldwater5707 I can’t wait to counter-gentrify Marin County ☺️