r/fuckcars / Not Just Bikes / Urbanists / New Urbanism / Car-Free / Anti-Car - People and grifters who hate personal transport, freedom, cars, roads, suburbs, and are obsessed with city planning and urban design

[Xarpho's Return]

Has this already been asked or explained (especially over the 480+ pages on this thread)? The argument is that since the 40s or 50s, entire buildings and urban centers were demolished in favor of huge sprawling highways, and that republicunts actively insist on keeping commute distances as long as possible and population densities as low as possible, or else it's an Orwellian Stasi-like project to make surveillance and movement control effortless and also that it's another rat utopia experiment with plummeting birth rates and skyrocketing crime and drug overdoses. I also keep seeing urbanists complain about how our mental health crisis and increase in school shootings are directly attributed to our living and urban centers being built with only introverts in mind and encouraging living a sheltered and coddled life like Chris-Chan in 14BC, and also that the only viable form of in-person social interaction is in school or a few kilometers away from home. On the other hand, people in East Asia on average live in what satisfies urbanists' demands but have some of the worst mental health records in the world which can only really be attributed to cultural problems instead of convenient multi-modal commuting.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to ask, are you agreeing with urbanist positions, or trying to counter them?

 

[Yamamura]

I found this video and thought it was kind of amusing. At the beginning it sounds like he's calling out urbanists on their shit.

 

[Found the open sauce]

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to ask, are you agreeing with urbanist positions, or trying to counter them?

Trying to counter and understand them, anything to counter especially the doomer-baiting

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Trying to counter and understand them, anything to counter especially the doomer-baiting

Ah, okay, because my response would've been phrased very differently depending on the arguments. Let me prepare for that for you.

Sorry for double-posting but it is an hour later and I wanted to get this out there:

Has this already been asked or explained (especially over the 480+ pages on this thread)? The argument is that since the 40s or 50s, entire buildings and urban centers were demolished in favor of huge sprawling highways, and that republicunts actively insist on keeping commute distances as long as possible and population densities as low as possible, or else it's an Orwellian Stasi-like project to make surveillance and movement control effortless and also that it's another rat utopia experiment with plummeting birth rates and skyrocketing crime and drug overdoses.

Any argument about commute times is entirely bullshit.

There's numbers tossed around how much time it takes to commute with some numbers stretching to "two hours each way"; I suspect that's accidentally multiplying the commute times. Globohomo art aside, this site does a good job at visualizing how long commute times take, especially driving from the suburbs.

Note for Houston a "one hour time" is driving from some place as far northwest as Navasota, as far west as Columbus, and almost as far east as Beaumont. As @quaawaa has done you can also plug in addresses to destinations (also not everyone works downtown, a common misconception).

Most "muh downtowns demolished for highways" pictures were taken decades and decades apart, usually comparing the 1930s or 1940s to the 1970s or even modern day. These don't account for vacancies downtown either, and usually the old aerial photos are just enough to tell if something was there or not.

For fun you can point out that "downtown before and after freeways" and "downtown before and after Civil Rights Act" is just as accurate.

Jason Slaughter moving to the Netherlands to escape car-dependent hell is as absurd and lulzy

Jason lies through his teeth all the time. It was revealed that Jason does not live in Amsterdam-Centrum, the tourist district of Amsterdam with narrow streets and canals, but rather Amsterdam-Zuid, a wealthy part of Amsterdam with a number of detached housing units with cars. There was a post more recently that suggested he goes shopping in common European hypermarkets rather than the "small shops" that he talks about. (In Amsterdam-Centrum, due to its touristy nature, has very few "real" grocery stores and are all convenience stores for tourists).

Republicunts say that public transport should be defunded or abolished because its users disproportionately consist of unsympathetically impoverished lowlife violent criminals or pickpockets who never made the right decisions growing up, had an absymal academic performance and lengthy disciplinary record in school, and forever stuck at the bottom at their own fault and are either unemployable or only allowed minimum wage labor. Therefore, by making life complete hell for such people by not letting them go anywhere as they can't afford a car and are bad drivers, the city will be sunshine and rainbows again and safer than Tokyo and Singapore (two cities with a reputation of satisfying urbanists).

Nobody on the right is seriously talking about "defunding transit", even their hated Trump talked about improving the NY subway.

The actual friction (not "muh Project 2025" fearmongering) usually comes in different forms:

• State Republicans who hesitate on feeding the endless money-gobbling of certain transit systems.
• State Republicans who don't like the idea of a big taxpayer-funded HSR program.
• Suburbanites who are part of a mass transit program and vote against transit expansion.

The latter is important because most "metro tax" areas are much larger than the area where most of where mass transit actually goes and feeds into regularly. Because they ARE taxed, suburban interests hold places on the board and will vote against big transit plans that don't do anything from them since they still pay into the system and receive almost nothing in return.

The transit boards can't cut the suburban areas out because they're where a lot of the funding comes from. You can point out how massive the MTA tax area and how tiny the subway system is compared to it.

Republicunts also say that commuting by bike is sluggish and doesn't have any carrying capacity for groceries or kids, which immediately contradicts all arguments for making commuting (especially by car) way longer.

When it comes to carrying capacity and they trot out the bike trailers argument, notice how in pictures they're always showing them empty. They also argue for dimensions, not for carrying capacity.

Quote-unquote "100 years ago", our cities used to be designed like western European cities today until conservative-led zoning laws came in and made huge sprawling highways plow down entire square miles worth of urbanization, as per the following posters down below. Wasn't the car-centric revolution pushed by only progressives and liberals, and the entire opposition being trad-family conservatives? And what's the reality of the difference between the same cities of the two different eras if it wasn't simply retrofitting horse carriage roads with modern asphalt and sidewalks? And there were also new safety standards like the ban on asbestos, which demolishing and building from scratch might've been cheaper and more practical than refactoring the same buildings.

The whole of "urbanist history" is extremely distorted. There are a few points to make:
- Comparing them to western European cities isn't really accurate since "downtown" (or a "monocentric core") is a relatively recent concept in world history. There's really no "downtown" Rome or "downtown" Berlin.
- People have tried to get away from the downtown areas well before the car, with "streetcar suburbs" on the fringes of the cities (which would now be considered "urban" today).
- The idea of ride-sharing in an automobile dates back to almost the dawn of automobiles themselves ever since a car owner figured out that with a chauffeurs' license he could legally give another man a ride in his car for a nickel. It makes sense as horses and their drivers had done that since the 1600s. These were enough to cause streetcar systems to lose money.
- GM did not buy the streetcars to put them out of commission, either. The "conspiracy" was that when they switched to buses (which was the more profitable and flexible option) to use GM buses (and other companies' products). This was considered an anti-trust act. Notably, GM or its subsidiaries had any involvement in the Los Angeles "Red Cars".

There's a famous photo of a bunch of defunct Red Car streetcars stacked up in a junkyard from the 1950s. It should be noted that Pacific Electric Railway Company (always owned by Southern Pacific since 1911) had been shedding lines since the 1920s, and the real money-maker for the company was freight traffic.

Unsurprisingly, Pacific Electric sold off the passenger lines in the 1950s to focus on freight and was eventually fully absorbed into its parent company.

With the three points combined, it therefore means that both neighborhoods and cities in general will forever be car-dependent and inconvenient to go any other way, which therefore means more stress on the part of the especially big family, more frustration, and less incentive or emotional fitness to have children and fulfill the American dream, therefore being an unsustainable living model with shrinking birth rates and an increase in isolation and frustration-induced mental health problems besides the obvious irritability on the road. With this point, it's even easier to assume just how doomer that these urbanists are, especially the harder it is to prove it not happening.

But again, all of those "points" are wrong. It is actually quite convenient to go anywhere, even in the suburbs, a 15-minute car ride can get to a good number of destinations.

The rest is just correlation/causation navel-gazing, though if you want you could bring up a number of points about the court cases and laws in the 1960s that negatively affected society. Mass immigration, civil rights, women in the workforce, a lack of fathers in the household, turning away from organized religion, pick anything and you can make it work.

They also use something like these posters as an argument:

The first picture isn't really an argument since Amsterdam has much longer commute times than most American cities, especially given its compact size.
The second picture is 100% propaganda by a group that had a lot to lose if freeways were built (and they wouldn't look like that).
The third picture is just stating facts. Plus a lot of southeast Asian cities do have long commute times, too.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Commute times are almost a direct measurement of a father’s love for his family.

When he’s single he can move easily and as close to work as he can afford.

When newly married, he can position himself somewhere his wife works or enjoys.

But once the kids have friends, he begins to be willing to commute further to keep his kids near their school/friends.

Compared to slaving ten hours in a coal mine, 30 minutes to an hour of commute time listening to racist podcasts is absolutely nothing.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I should note that urbanists will never concede any of the points I made; depending on the turf, they'll drop the argument, accuse you of being an "oil industry carbrain" or whatever, or might even ban you.

 

[quaawaa]

Jason doesn't like bikes:

Source (Archive)

 

[Meriasek]

Jason doesn't like bikes:
View attachment 6278493
Source (Archive)

Typical Jason, not understanding logic. Driving a 20 year old Camry does not imply lack of interest in cars.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Typical Jason, not understanding logic. Driving a 20 year old Camry does not imply lack of interest in cars.

In fact, it's the opposite; driving a 20 year old Camry probably indicates you DO have an interest in cars, enough to get a well-regarded vehicle and to keep it maintained and used.

 

[Meriasek]

In fact, it's the opposite; driving a 20 year old Camry probably indicates you DO have an interest in cars, enough to get a well-regarded vehicle and to keep it maintained and used.

Or you have a daily driver beater car and a whole garage full of classics and projects. Nothing to indicate that there is no interest at all beyond wanting to have a method of transport.

 

[Sexy Peach Emoji]

In fact, it's the opposite; driving a 20 year old Camry probably indicates you DO have an interest in cars, enough to get a well-regarded vehicle and to keep it maintained and used.

Or you have a daily driver beater car and a whole garage full of classics and projects. Nothing to indicate that there is no interest at all beyond wanting to have a method of transport.

That would imply being a complex individual with a fully realized personality with depth. Jason and his urbanite followers are not such people. They are superficial and shallow to thee extreme.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

That would imply being a complex individual with a fully realized personality with depth. Jason and his urbanite followers are not such people.

Deep down I think this is the real issue - something about urbanism and urban living turns you into a stereotype. It's like one of those horror shows where you realize that going down the path of sin turns you into the sin and nothing else; all humanity is lost.

It's kind of making me reconsider cities entirely.

It would actually explain why you need constant immigration from rural areas even if not from out-of-country - you need people to be consumed to create the vibrant urban lifestyle, or it quickly becomes a ball of identical stereotypes and feels weird, even to the redditors.

 

[Marvin]

Deep down I think this is the real issue - something about urbanism and urban living turns you into a stereotype. It's like one of those horror shows where you realize that going down the path of sin turns you into the sin and nothing else; all humanity is lost.

I really doubt many of these people live in cities. Like the prominent ones might, the ones with the youtube channels and whatnot, but the majority of the commentors don't; they just want to bitch on their subreddits.

 

[Throng of Titans]

I really doubt many of these people live in cities. Like the prominent ones might, the ones with the youtube channels and whatnot, but the majority of the commentors don't; they just want to bitch on their subreddits.

A not insignificant chunk of urbanists are NEETs who live with their parents in the suburbs, and want to complain about every aspect of their lives, even though their biggest stressors are getting out of bed at 3 PM, and waiting for the new Genshin Impact update to install.

 

[Yamamura]

A not insignificant chunk of urbanists are NEETs who live with their parents in the suburbs, and want to complain about every aspect of their lives, even though their biggest stressors are getting out of bed at 3 PM, and waiting for the new Genshin Impact update to install.

Since they don't have a job it might be hard for them to afford a car to travel around to find boyfriend free girls with. Part of their cope is probably that if there weren't cars they could ride the public transport while playing their Switch to meet women.

Jason doesn't like bikes:
View attachment 6278493
Source (Archive)

Jason committed the gravest sin of not worshiping what the urbanist's consider God's gift to man: the bicycle.

Outside of cycling as a sport I'm going to be honest talking any more deeply about them is going to be ultra autismo. Listening to a podcast about bikes even more so.

 

[Atypical Dog]

Deep down I think this is the real issue - something about urbanism and urban living turns you into a stereotype. It's like one of those horror shows where you realize that going down the path of sin turns you into the sin and nothing else; all humanity is lost.

It's kind of making me reconsider cities entirely.

It would actually explain why you need constant immigration from rural areas even if not from out-of-country - you need people to be consumed to create the vibrant urban lifestyle, or it quickly becomes a ball of identical stereotypes and feels weird, even to the redditors.

The city runs on inhuman principles - laws, metrics, isms, rules of thumb - and therefore turns those who live in it into inhuman creatures.

https://argomend.substack.com/p/the-drug-that-is-humanity?r=2q4k35

By the way, to your post on commute times: my dad's were an hour or two each way, had to get someone to drive him and he was still exhausted.

A not insignificant chunk of urbanists are NEETs who live with their parents in the suburbs, and want to complain about every aspect of their lives, even though their biggest stressors are getting out of bed at 3 PM, and waiting for the new Genshin Impact update to install.

Agreed. The most urbanist of my friend circle lives in a nice gated community where, granted, he can't really commute anywhere because it's in a relatively rich neighborhood without a lot of options, but his family can totally afford to have someone chauffeur him around.

Jason committed the gravest sin of not worshiping what the urbanist's consider God's gift to man: the bicycle.

Outside of cycling as a sport I'm going to be honest talking any more deeply about them is going to be ultra autismo. Listening to a podcast about bikes even more so.

He would like it better if it had square wheels and was horrifyingly inefficient.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

In fact, it's the opposite; driving a 20 year old Camry probably indicates you DO have an interest in cars, enough to get a well-regarded vehicle and to keep it maintained and used.

Or you have a daily driver beater car and a whole garage full of classics and projects. Nothing to indicate that there is no interest at all beyond wanting to have a method of transport.

Or you really like cars but you're poor and that's the best you can afford. And there's nothing wrong with that either.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Outside of cycling as a sport I'm going to be honest talking any more deeply about them is going to be ultra autismo. Listening to a podcast about bikes even more so.

Plus, modern bikes suck. Sure they're absolute performance monsters that make bikes from even as little as ten years ago look primitive and shitty by comparison but their over-reliance on high tech and exotic materials makes them monstrously expensive to buy, maintain, and repair, and makes them far less environmentally friendly than you would think given the resource intensive manufacturing process.

 

[quaawaa]

Or you really like cars but you're poor and that's the best you can afford. And there's nothing wrong with that either.

In Jason’s world, everyone is rich so the only reason that someone would own a 20 year old car is because they bought it new 20 years ago and don’t care what they drive as long as it works.

Remember, urbanists believe that a car costs over $10k a year because they think that everyone buys brand new luxury cars.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

In Jason’s world, everyone is rich so the only reason that someone would own a 20 year old car is because they bought it new 20 years ago and don’t care what they drive as long as it works.

Remember, urbanists believe that a car costs over $10k a year because they think that everyone buys brand new luxury cars.

At times like these I long for a sad reaction sticker.