Comments by "" (@jasonreed7522) on "City Beautiful" channel.

  1. Another factor is coal fired power. Brown coal is ultra dirty and ultra cheap. Obviously cars don't help but it really takes coal to reach such insane levels. (China also has this problem, coal is too cheep and available to not be used to support electrification in these countries while everyone else if freaking out over climate issues(justifiably)). To me 1960's American traffic planning means terrible congestion and urban highway obsession at the cost of any decent mass transit which would have been far more efficient by basically all metrics.
    64
  2. One of the most surreal of these old/new adjacencies is how the pyramids of gaza egypt are normally photographed with just desert in the background but they are actually at the edge of a city with perfectly "normal" modern architecture.
    60
  3. The 1950s had some very effective propaganda, first selling the car as the definition of freedom and how that justifies car infrastructure to make that a self fulfilling prophecy (because now you actually need a car to go anywhere, hence a car has literally become freedom from the prison of your home). And the suburb was sold as the ultimate compromise between rural and urban life, all the safety, clean air, and space of the countryside with all the amenities and economic opportunities of the city. (The reality is not so much) And so today we may still be capable of great innovation, but too many are either still bought into the past's propaganda or unable/willing to try to fix the mistakes of our grandfather's. Even when we want to change its always expensive and political (politics will have people take a stance they know is wrong just so they can oppose their enemies, i hate politics)
    46
  4. The main reason to drive in Boston is usually work related, if you are visiting the city and have a tight schedule, the safest and sometimes only option is to just suck it up and drive while planning around the traffic. But as a resident, or a longer term visitor in a hotel or rental then you probably have the ability to actually get away without using a car. Sadly amtrak still sucks in the northeast, just because its better than in alot of places doesn't mean it doesn't have a long way to go.
    46
  5. My town has a "bike path" (multi use, motor vehicles banned) that is a just over 5km loop around a golf course that gets tons of use for recreation. (And doesn't meaningfully connect anything, one entrance is by the bus garage/golf course on the dege of town and the other is by an apartment complex on the edge of town) I think its safe ro say that people will gladly bike 5km if its safe and comfortable even without a destination. (And the stats for a place like the Netherlands is much further, but the average adult can go 10km without getting winded) Tldr, people will bike for for miles so extend that good separated/multi use path as far as you reasonably can and it will be used.
    35
  6. And a slightly less hidden benefit is as a location to host local festivals and similar events that really build a sense of community. Ideally this park is right on Mainstreet near other amenities like the library and restaurants. (And the mandatory icecream stand so you can get an ice cream and eat it in the park) Although the exact benefits of a park depend on its exact type. A series of public tennis courts will provide less runoff reduction than a manicured grass lawn style park for instance. A bike path may be great for recreation but its also likely to be long and narrow which isn't good for hosting events but can be a fantastic backbone to cycling infrastructure in the area. (Everyone would rather bike in a park than in a gutter)
    31
  7. Especially because the easy first step is allowing duplex and similar into the low density mix creating a lowish density that doesn't immediately clash with the ultra low density single family zoning. (Basically its a good weapon against NIMBYs) and once the density starts to rise you can move on up to more dense housing forms with an ideal higher end being "respectful apartments". (Basically have them well maintained and have thick enough walls to not hear your neighbors 99% of the time) Single family homes should be kept to areas that are still walking range to a denser "Mainstreet" feeling area like in small towns. (Basically keep them in small pockets no bigger than 10min walking time to the closest dense edge, and have actual sidewalks + bike infrastructure throughout)
    27
  8. At that point a condo building is functionally an apartment complex and need the same "building & grounds" level management, although condos are probably better long term as you technically own a subsection of the building instead of simply occupying it. But for a more traditional suburb of detached single family homes (and duplexes & the like that can "hide" in such a neighborhood), i can't imagine putting up with an HOA. If for nothing else they are enforcing sterility and uniformity, and growing up in a small town its genuinely 1,000 times more attractive to have a mix of houses. (Styles, colors, sizes, materials, ages, ect ) My town has a building that was a former stop on the underground railroad, a neighboring town has a 3 story pink house with white & purple trim, it definitely looks better than cookie cutter suburban house left hand symmetry #684648.
    18
  9.  @ernestcallenbach9953  suburbs litterally can't even bother to add a sidewalk (especially in residential areas). I hate to say it but i think we need actual laws about the minimum building density to mandate a sidewalk. (Obviously on back roads they aren't needed, but when you have the density of a small town village or generic suburb a sidewalk is needed despite the nimbys pretending they are on a rural backroad)
    18
  10. Gary's problems run very deep, to the point cops tell you to just leave and don't stop at the stopsigns until you reach a less economically depressed area. Its already become a "positive" feed back loop meaning the problems reinforce themselves.
    17
  11. Also remember, European cities grew to size long before cars were invented and as such had to be pedestrian friendly. American cites in contrast grew substantially after cars were invented and suburbs were built in the relatively cheap and available lands near cities. So many American cities were built with a fanatic obsession with cars which don't belong in cites. (Simple geometry) Now the consequences of this is that American cities generally are much less pedestrian friendly than European cities, however, local policy on mass transit is the final straw.
    16
  12. Additionally outside of HOAs you will see the full spectrum of housing which includes smaller, older, and more run down properties. (Not to mention environmental factors like proximity to a farm, never live downwind of a farm) In contrast he stated that 80% of new housing is part of an HOA by default, so how much of this 4% is from the housing simply being all new or not permitted to decay or suit lower income people. (Basically is this sample bias at work?)
    14
  13. It also could be important to ensure it stays open as late as the bars on weekends. Simply put drunk driving is bad, so giving people ways to get to bars and home where someone else drives them is preferable. Even if it isn't directly profitable i would imagine the slight boost to bar patronage and reduction in drunk driving related "accidents" would certainly pay for itself.
    13
  14. That psychological need to stick to the edges is called survival instinct/fear. Since childhood we are taught to stay out of the road for our own protection, and to be wary while crossing it because we ultimately can only trust ourselves to look out for our own well-being. This means its very ingrained to stay away from the middle of the road no matter what state its in. (Even on private logging roads with super low traffic volumes i walk along the edge and not down the center) A slightly different factor is that black asphalt gets really hot in sunlight so being on it sucks as a human. (Although this doesn't so much push you to the edge as completely off and into buildings or onto the grass)
    12
  15.  @Rahul_G.G.  thats just supply and demand, the demand is sky high and they are building more as fast as possible. Fuel cost is just one aspect of what determines the minimum profitable price a plant can operate at. The business side of the operation determines a cost as function of generation rate for the plant and then every plant submits this to the Independent System Operator who habe the job of telling everyone how much to generate to meet demand. The ISO always picks the next cheapest generator who sets the new "wholesale price" for the grid. If transmission lines into a region are at capacity then only local generation can meet new local demand and the price decouples from the rest of the grid. (Very common in cities on particularly high demand days) Wholesale price isn't what you pay as a customer, its what your distribution company/utility pays and then they normally offer a fixed rate to the customer. (You can get an unbuffered rate which can save you lots of money but in the case of exeptional circumstances can be very expensive) For a full explanation the channel Practical Engineering has 2 videos that are very helpful, one on the texas blackout in the icestorm and one on the 2003 blackout of the American northeast caused by Cleveland.
    9
  16.  @xaviercopeland2789  thats kinda the point, make transit more appealing than cars for most trips. Obviously if all you do is nuke parking it won't go over well, so the key part is make better transit so we can then kick cars out of urban cores where they litterally don't fit. (Said by a car owner who knows their value)
    9
  17. That sounds amazing, this morning i looked to see how long it would take to get places in the Northeast using options other than car and was greatly saddened. (Mainly seeing if i could enjoy a nice train ride instead of a 6-7 hour drive) The answer was so depressing. I am a 10min drive to a train station south of Hartford CT (basically dead center of the tiny state). And to visit Syracuse NY (center of the state) would take 4hrs by car or 8 by train (admittedly the mass pike and NY throughway are great for inter city travel which is what freeways are supposed to be used for). To get to within a hour and a half of my hometown would take me to lake placid or Plattsburgh NY (near the Canadian border due north of Albany) would take around 18hrs, and i still would have a 2 hour car drive left. I can go straight home in 6-7 depending on traffic and breaks needed. (3 of which are spent crossing mountains on 55-60mph roads, which admittedly is the only enjoyable part of the drive, interstates are so boring) Lets just say the American trains are not worth taking which is a shame, as Amtrak has 1 line that lets you take a car with you and that line connects 2 cities when it should be available for going to rural places where you objectively must use a car. (I had the idea of doing that before to get Americans on rails but DC to Orlando is an interesting choice for such an option)
    7
  18. Important Historical Context: Europe's cities are generally super old, like medieval old so they were built when pedestrian or horse cart were the only means of transportation. This resulted in much more compact cities and alot of stuff in the way of car centered infrastructure. American cites mostly grew in 2 phases, pre car which lasted longer in the east, and post car which was a period of major growth and suburbs became a thing. So with context America had a much better opportunity to be car centric and had lots of empty space to sprawl into since it was/is way more rural than Europe so it is expected that American cities would be less walkable. Now, we need to try to use the lessons learned from our mistakes to make healthier cities that dont involve cars or internal combustion engines. A good interface with rural regions would be park your car at a rural train station/airport and use public transit within the city. Since rural regions are highly dependent on cars.
    7
  19. Some people call that "brutalist architecture" i call it a hellscape. All they needed was some trees and "park like" infrastructure around the grounds to look decent, and then vet the residents to provide some level of piece of mind for the residents. (If you don't have piece of mind as soon as you get a better work situation you leave and don't look back, this will create a slum if only those who can't escape are willing to live there. Its basically the same as how districts where smoke from factories fell are still the poor parts of cities like London 100years after the factories closed, the air pollution drove away anyone who could move leaving behind a slum)
    7
  20. If the rail was half as fast as flying, but had a far more pleasant ride and station experience it would get used heavily. Especially if it connected all the "small cities" along the way, like Albany, Springfield, Syracuse, Hartford, as well as the Majors like Boston, NYC, Buffalo. And for the "slow rail" have a station placed to be on average under a 1hr drive from places and you would be amazed the amount of tourism that would happen from people who couldn't care less about cities visiting other smaller destinations.
    6
  21.  @steverempel8584  i think some mega cities with multiple cores are the results of two cities that each had 1 core having their suburbs grow until their was no obvious division between the cities. 1 case of how this could happen is that the Capital of NY is Albany and directly across the Hudson is Rensselaer but nobody even acknowledges the difference when talking about the region. (They are different counties) But for a mega/giga city to be truly unified you would need near perfect and fast public transit so that the different ends of town still have enough "weak connections" to not develop separate identities as nobody bothers visiting the far side if town for anything.
    5
  22. A simple way to make a traffic jam is to slam on your brakes or make someone else slam on theirs (by cutting them off). In short the people behind the braking car will brake more than you did eventually leading to a fully stopped car on the freeway, the jam will only clear if more cars leave the "traffic snake" then enter it. Surprisingly, driving like a good driver helps traffic and driving like a bad driver hurts traffic. Also the best solution to traffic is to not let personal cars into cities AND have good mass transit. (Rural places need cars since rural mass transit is economically impossible)
    5
  23. It seems like common sense for bars to want to be car independent. (Drinking and Driving is illegal for good reasons) And likewise patrons would prefer to be able to walk home from the bar, or atleast not have to drive themselves.
    5
  24. The only time i have driven in Boston is for work, going from about Hartford CT to MIT for a site visit (engineer for construction, they are always changing up their laboratory spaces) and that was bad enough. The caveats are that MIT is in Cambridge which technology isn't the City of Boston but its close enough, and it was my first time driving in a major city off the highway. (I grew up super rural, and drove in Syracuse at night once, and Syracuse has nothing on Boston traffic) The "what went wrong" that caused me to drive, if i tried taking Amtrak i would have arrived at 9pm, just in time for my field work from 10am-3pm. Its very frustrating being in transit and train friendly New England and having the trains still suck to the point you basically just have to drive everywhere anyway.
    4
  25. Boston has some crazy city borders. Just from a map perspective one would expect that Cambridge and Brookline would have already been annexed. Its also hilarious to me that "Harvard Bridge" connects directly between MIT and Boston. (The road does go to Harvard, but MIT is right there)
    4
  26. This explains people's obsession with property values. Since your tax is based on how valuable your house & land is i would assume you want the lowest value possible if you don't intend to sell it. (Many people will live in a house for many years before their life changes enough to justify a move, usually tied with a job change) I understand the intent of don't kick grandma out of the house she lived in for 50 years just because a bunch of people did things around her, but on transfer to someone else (like inherentence) it should go back to normal. And intentionally causing a housing shortage in an area plagued by homelessness is a very asshole thing to do. I don't think all NIMBYs are automatically evil, selfish, assholes so you should atleast try to figure out what their side of the argument is and incorporate a fair compromise. (For his example of the parking garage failing to be a 12 story residential building, why couldn't they shave a few layers off the top to only be a 7-10 story residential building, maybe turn the first floor into a park for the entire community instead of being so absolutist about everything)
    4
  27. If only more people would realize the best way to improve everything about driving is to have less drivers by giving people options to avoid driving.
    4
  28. You could theoretically convert any normal unit to that one. Its just miles per unit energy, a standard burrito worth of calories is probably the hardest part of the entire process because that gives you miles per Calorie which is 1000 calories (a base unit that is equal to 4.81J and Joules are universal) You also gotta figure out the efficiency of food in to exercise out, ask a nutritionist that one.
    3
  29. It would make more sense if it expanded at certain density breakpoints to encurage areas to all build up to the 3-4 story range before expanding when its actually needed.
    3
  30. I would like to think that this act of kindness is an inherent part of the "American Way". Where you help your countrymen through any disaster regardless of your rivalries. This is actually something many liked about the aftermath of 9/11, for a time national solidarity was incredibly strong. (I was too young to remember any of that though) Not to claim any sort of monopoly on being decent people, especially as sometime it feels like we are loosing our sense of compassion. (Exacerbated by social media and the news/media both highlighting loud and attention grabbing opinions and making a select few terrible people louder than they ever should be, on all sides)
    3
  31. Honestly college sports are better than national level sports, for starters its your city/town's team, possibly your friends, has no stopping for commercials to play on TV, and the pep band makes a world of difference in crowd energy. (Also ticket price)
    3
  32. I suspect the reason for that is land value and space. I know very little about Phoenix other than the images of whats basically a small town that only grew out and not "up". So i assume that the economic factors in the city make it cheaper to just keep expanding low density structures into the "empty" desert than to bother building skyscrapers in the core of the city. For reference NYC (Manhattan specifically) has a record of some plots of land being worth over $2000 per square foot of plot, so obviously you would only build towers to try and get the most out of that land. If land in Phoenix is cheap then why bother making expensive towers?
    3
  33.  @francisdayon  green energy is not too expensive, it can be the cheapest option, especially economic "externalities" are considered. (It cost a factory nothing to polute a river with industrial waste, but that has massive social costs that the government will pay. This is why china stopped importing a bunch of recyclables from the US, the companies profited having sweatshops sort plastic by hand but the health effects were costing China's government big time) And who says the "developing" world has to climb the tech tree and make all the same mistakes as the developed world. They don't have to use coal and steam engines for hundreds of years, they can import specialty goods like windmills and solar panels. Hell india could start will concentrated solar in the south or the deserts near Pakistan, all that takes is mirrors and molten salt as the heat exchanger with a conventional thermal plant system. They have enough Brain power to have both nukes (weapons) and a space program, they could build nuclear power as an alternative to coal and build hydro in the Himalayas to serve as the battery for they concentrated solar. Upgrade transmission lines enough and they can make different regions capable of supporting eachother fully so you don't need to burn coal locally. (Also natural gas killed coal in the states thanks to fracking so I'm sure india could import nat gas or extract its own to avoid using brown coal, the dirtiest of the coals) Coal is simply cheap and dirty, unimaginably dirty with long term consequences. (Litterally creating the poor districts in western cities like London because were the smoke from the factories fell only the poor couldn't escape)
    3
  34.  @megalonoobiacinc4863  except if you look at his feet its super obvious that he is standing on that ground/slope and some grass is infront of him. Somehow this manages to be both more and less fake feeling than a green screen.
    3
  35. The name of the game is always jobs, if they could court some company to build a factory or offices in whatever counts as the nice part of town that would provide the hope and opportunity needed to get the ball rolling for everything else. What failed Garry was having 60% of the population employed by a single factory/employer/industry and not diversifying the economy to handle the shock of "what if they go under/decline?" which steel did in the states and the city lost its income with no backup.
    3
  36.  @neolithictransitrevolution427  very fair arguments, but for arguments sake living on the same campus you work at will save you alot of expenses owning a car. The problem being 99% of Walmarts are built on stroads so unless you owned a car you wouldn't have an easy time going anywhere other than box stores. (Making the only reason to stay in such a unit the rent, which hopefully is damn near free compared to any other apartments you could rent in the city) I definitely agree with you on the dangers of building "serf housing" everywhere, its just a concept that has had economic sense throughout history. (Like servents living in a castle, not that we want to return to such a society)
    3
  37. But they also attract a wealthy class of individuals (professors) who will have very high property taxes on their properties, and students who will spend a lot of money patronizing the local businesses and contributing to sales tax. If you want to complain about the whole in your property taxes, you must also compare it to the bump in the rest of your taxes to see if it even is a net loss for your city.
    3
  38. Why is it that skyliners/ski lift style transportation is almost exclusively used in themeparks/resorts. I understand i am not well traveled and they are point to point but it seems like there should be some use case in urban areas. (Possibly from a train hub to the middle of a shopping district, but it could also just a price factor)
    3
  39. I'm american and I don't get it either, but then again i grew up 30min south of the Canadian border in an area with minimal diversity and nobody really cared about race just who you are as an individual. (Although being racist was still a thing and very frowned upon. I assume most of America's race obsession stems from the south and sunbelt where racial diversity is much more prevalent and lasting scars still exist from the days of truly evil racism.)
    3
  40. I wouldn't say it doesn't create traffic. Traffic isn't about the mode of transport, its about how much congestion and backup and delay happens. Inside buildings when a hallway is crowded it is said to be a high traffic area. Its just bikes and pedestrians fit a lot easier than cars do into the same space and as such are less likely to cause "traffic" that inconveniences you. And i do agree with the idea of a bike "highway" just more in the sense of having a lot of multipurpose paths to take shortcuts intentionally unavailable to cars. Cars have a use, but that is more for rural regions and not urban and suburbs that should focus on transit and bike/pedestrian infrastructure.
    3
  41. A much less talked about form of gentrification than what urban communities face is what rural communities face. Often a lake will have a small hamlet or town on/near it and the super rich will buy as much property as possible and drive up land values until the locals are incapable of owning anything amd they turn a public body of water into their own private lake. (Personally this should be illegal and punishable with prison time) But even just a normal small farming community could face similar problems if overly rich folk drive up property values above what local jobs can pay for.
    3
  42.  @Jetliner  ACC definitely feels like its in its infancy as a technology, like if cruise just locked the throttle at whatever percentage of max you had it at instead of giving more or less to maintain a target speed. ACC is currently (as far as i can tell) only using instantaneous position/distance to set the target speed so when you get cut off or someone jumps in that gap because people drive with cat logic (if i fits, i sits) it will notice the distance collapsed and set its new target like 20-30mph lower for this distance and start braking. What it needs to do is at a bare minimum take the derivative of the position data, smooth it slightly because dervitives amplify noise, and then use this relative speed to determine if it really needs to slow down. (It could also just find out exactly the speed the other car is going and make that its target if that speed is lower than yours while trending towards the desired follow distance.) As far as lane sense and blind spot monitoring, go to setting and disable the chime, i only have it on for long road trips where fatigue is a concern. And lane sense is similarly poorly implimented with it just turning the wheel a fixed amount instead of dynamically inreasing it to keep on its side of the line, i leave mine off since it isn't actually able to do its job. (At best the wheel turning is an alert you drifted, amt worst it actively fights you) I think the real leason here that can be applied to self driving cars are that programmers apparently don't drive or many of these issues wouldn't be a thing because its common sense that cruise isn't just lock the throttle at 45% because that only works on perfectly level ground with 0 weather. Overall these technologies are a net positive even in their current form, but that doesn't mean they are perfect yet. (I still wish other drivers would just use normal cruise, let alone the fancier assist features)
    2
  43. I definitely think the signs that just show your speed back too you and blink if you are way to fast are more effective as they just provide immediate feedback and get you attention that "here is a speed zone, slow down". But like everything it requires maintenance, and while this isn't the scope of the video in my area their are many signs that have been swallowed by trees so its become very easy to miss a speed sign. It also doesn't help that the set limit and the actual "natural speed" aren't in sync when this happens.
    2
  44. Fundamentally you need jobs (that pay above poverty line wages and aren't government), with those most people cam support themselves and the local government will have enough money to pay the social programs needed for the rest. Admittedly its much easier said than done to create jobs that pay and affordable housing options. And if Vancouver is the only Canadian city that has a survivable winter for the homeless then all Canadian cities need to work on their homeless creation problem and provide sufficient shelters so they aren't forced to move to Vancouver or litterally die to the Canadian Winter.
    2
  45. I think part of it is that most of Europe is significantly older than the USA so the economies of the cities are more diversified. Gary was born in the 1920's as a steel foundry barracks, when 60% of the population is employed by 1 employer/industry, its highly likely that the rest of the population is basically just service for them and not other self supporting buisnesses. (Restaurants and stores that have 90% of their clients be employed by a single factory or mine will close when that factory closes) I think the USA just has more of these Boom towns that were originally just a village that suddenly found gold, oil, or build a steel foundry and one day the well runs dry, the gold or coal gets mined up, the factory closes and then the city/town has nothing else to offer anyone so its economy crashes and everyone moves away. Compare this to NYC or London which have very diverse economies supported by financial, legal, trade/shipping, political, 30 different industries, ect. They have such a diverse economy that if one industry implodes that the entire economy won't collapse with it. Part of this diversification is time and part is city planning, actively finding ways to get other income sources to move into the city. If you have steel maybe you can get cars and canned goods as well, in modern times electronics are huge, even Universities can support a smaller town by litterally importing students from other areas who will pay tuition amd spend money in stores, the university then pays professors good money who then pay taxes and spend money in stores which distributes some income to the area around the university. I think america just has a lot more single industry towns & cities than europe.
    2
  46.  @davidmendelsohn1583  good use of tax dollars: building quality transit, actually helping low income populations, providing public services like schools, police, ems, ect. Bad uses: giving to the rich, ripping up useful infrastructure, 1 more lane bro-ing, building useless crap, corruption
    2
  47.  @grantr9745  that's hilarious and kinda embarrassing for the Titans. I used to ticket prices for less atypical situations being $10 for a mens game at my college and $100 average for the Montreal Canadians. (Plus travel expenses if applicable)
    2
  48.  @isaaccastillo5080  you have discovered the concept of the metropolitan area, (technically this breaks for small cities). The metro is all contiguous counties that are highly urban in what most would recognize as functionally 1 city. For instance Albany NY is only the west side of the Hudson, and Rensselaer NY is the county on the east bank of the Hudson, but functionally it is just 1 city divided on a historical border determined when rivers where hard to cross and the place was basically just a small fort town. The real questions are why is Staten Island in NY and not Jersey (states, and cities) and Yonkers hasn't been absorbed into NYC yet. The answer is basically just a bunch of historical legacy nobody is willing to clean up and a local myth about sailing around islands.
    2
  49. Hongkong was leased to the UK as mudhuts on an island for ≈100years, then in 1997 the lease was up and it was returned to China. However, by then Hong Kong was a very western/capitalist metropolis we think of it as, but China was an authoritarian communist nation, so China decided to let them have autonomy in the short term until the culture fell back in line with the despotic government. Although i think the City should have gone to Tiawan as the Republic of China made the treaty and was chased off the mainland by Mao during WW2 (taking full advantage of the Japanese invasion).
    2
  50. And then you have pheonix Arizona which is a litteral sea of suburbia in a desert and as such doesn't have much motivation to grow "up" vs "out".
    2