Comments by "UzuMaki NaRuto" (@UzumakiNaruto_) on "City Beautiful" channel.

  1. Even if you live within walking distance of many things, sometimes you just plain need a car. Try hauling anything even remotely large and bulky on public transit and see how that goes. Or buying a bunch of groceries or anything in large quantity and its going to be a chore.
    155
  2. The thing that doesn't make sense about this video is that just because you live in a gated community it doesn't mean you don't stay within its walls most of the time. I mean why can't you live in a safe gated community AND GASP GO OUT of your community on a daily basis to interact with the people of the rest of the city or area you live in?
    41
  3.  @jeremynewcombe3422  Because a gated community is usually meant to keep people OUT, not to keep you in. Its suppose to be a safe haven from the outside world of sorts where you come home to a sanctuary that hopefully keeps bad people out.
    30
  4.  @screamingcatchannel9624  The traffic in Toronto/GTA is bad not always because of too many vehicles, but mostly because of bad traffic management. Always pisses me off to be on a major road and see traffic build up because a minor road has a long green light so that two cars can use it and the rest of the 30 seconds there's no cars at all. Meanwhile cars are piling up on the major road waiting for the lights to change. I can't tell you how much better traffic would be if they would simply change traffic light timings to make major roads have most of the priority and be given the longest green lights over minor roads. Just that single change would make things so much better.
    25
  5.  @jeremynewcombe3422  It depends on where you live as to which bad people you might run into, but I think in general we know who leads the way in crime and violence and which demographic the vast majority of people want to avoid having as their neighbors.
    25
  6.  @jeremynewcombe3422  Because the statistics say so? Do you seriously believe that these facts are all made up just to make certain groups of people look bad rather than telling the truth? You're more than welcome to move into their communities and call them your neighbors and prove us all wrong, but we all know you would never do that.
    24
  7.  @jeremynewcombe3422  I think there's a few reasons why. 1. Poor upbringing. When you have crappy parents being utter failures in doing a proper job in raising their kids, then have that go on for generations on end then you produce neverending streams of badly behaving and often violent and criminal people who keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Fix this one problem and it solves many problems among their communities. 2. Too many of them aren't very bright, but unfortunately are highly emotional and highly aggressive. That's the worst combination possible where you have people who don't like thinking things through and prefer to act on their emotions immediately. That leads to violence, crime and destruction, where more educated and intelligent people would usually choose to avoid conflict and solve problems with discussion rather than violence and anger. 3. No one has the courage to hold certain people accountable for any of their actions and poor behaviors and instead choose to make continual excuses for them instead. Seems like most of our leaders and society would rather let these groups destroy our cities than have the balls to drop the hammer on them and keep them in line and be called racist, bigoted, discriminatory etc. They seem to believe that appeasement and kissing their asses will eventually calm them down and lower their anger when that's never worked and instead has only done the opposite. Namely they know that no matter what they do or say, few people will ever hold them accountable so why not keep pushing the envelope further when most everyone is too much of a coward to stop them? I live in a city that use to be much safer and cleaner, but because of our leaders being continual cowards and hypocrites in handling some groups of people and their behaviors its gotten progressively worse through the decades. Sure its still far from being a craphole like Detroit, but there's no denying that things today in my city are much worse than they were 30-40 years ago.
    20
  8.  @inspecktorf  How about making public transit more safer and secure for the general public from violent people and criminals? And also how about increasing work from home opportunities for more workers where possible? That would probably solve alot more traffic problems and do it much more quickly than building expensive public transit projects. Those who are able to work from home can then not require roads or transit at all and even better they can have more flexibility in where they choose to live and not overcrowd one area while leaving other areas less populated.
    18
  9.  @Xambonii  When you design cities and suburbs to be large and spacious then that's how things are going to be where you need a car to get around. Get city planners to design better cities so that you can reduce the use of cars without necessarily getting rid of it entirely.
    18
  10.  @jeremynewcombe3422  I think almost everyone is at least a little bit 'racist' or has some bias or preference for or against one group of people or another and in most cases I would call that less about racism and more about developing perceptions and opinions based on life experiences and interactions with people. Anyone who says they're 100% not racist or biased is most likely either lying, don't want to admit the truth or they're very naive. To put it another way, lets say we were talking about almost anything else except people would you call it 'racist' if after driving a number of cars over the years someone told you that they ended up preferring Japanese cars over American ones? If someone told you the reasons they preferred Japanese vehicles was because they were more reliable, cheaper to maintain and performed better, would you call them 'racist' for not treating all cars as being equal? That they were being anti-American for not ignoring all their life experiences with cars in favor of forcing them to say that all car brands from all countries were equally as good even when clearly they weren't? Sounds pretty illogical and unreasonable to throw out all of your life experiences with cars and force yourself to believe vehicles of all countries are equal when obviously they're not just so some people don't call you biased don't you think? Yet that's exactly what we all too often do when we're talking about people to avoid being called 'racist' even though its simply that someone is usually drawing from their life experiences and facts to shaped their opinions.
    17
  11. @Adam Bennett Transit only makes sense when you have enough density, is relatively cheap and is safe to use. For many cities one or more of those things isn't true.
    16
  12. Good to have optimism, but I seriously doubt Gary will get any better anytime soon when its populated predominately by a certain demographic. We all keep waiting for Detroit to get better and it hasn't ever comeback for the same reason.
    14
  13. Because people like cars and driving and in many cases trying to reduce their use is very difficult if not impossible. Also narrowing streets in any place that has significant snowfall? Minus well shutdown the city after every major snow storm then because between people shovelling snow and snow plows clearing the roads, the amount of piled up snow will take up practically all the road space meaning no one will be able to move anywhere.
    14
  14.  @MVargic  ' If more apartments could be build, prices would drop as this demand would be relieved. ' This can only happen if a) You prevent many if not most of those new units from becoming AirBnBs or other short term rentals and more importantly b) preventing foreign investors from buying up new housing units as they're being built while people actually living in the city can barely afford any of the new units because prices keep going up rather than down.
    14
  15. The vast majority of people struck by cars could EASILY be avoided if pedestrians simply LOOKED BOTH WAYS before and during crossing the street, but in this day and age asking anyone to take even a tiny bit of personal responsibility for their own behaviors is considered 'victim blaming'.
    14
  16.  @MrCrunch808  'Demographics of crime show oppression not how bad a demographic group is.' Disagree with this. There is PLENTY of crime and violence that certain groups commit that have very little to do with poverty or oppression and more because they're just shit people who's parents did a horrible job of raising them properly. There are hundreds of millions of poor people in the world who live in much worse conditions who don't raise their kids up to be violent and criminal people. Maybe this is less about other people failing them than they failing themselves but they'd rather not take the blame for anything. 'Very rarely does any group purposely impoverish themselves, its always a system of poverty that makes sure that people of a certain demographic are treated as second class citizens.' Again disagree. NO ONE does a better job of oppressing these people than themselves. How often do you ever see these people collectively work together to lift themselves up rather than seeing their neighbours doing better than they are and getting jealous and then either tearing down any progress and/or taking what's not theirs instead of thinking 'hey if they can do it, so can I'? You can see it everywhere in the US in certain communities. People complain about lack of services and stores. Services and stores open in those neighbourhoods. People in those places commit continual crime and violence against those businesses until the owners can't take it anymore and leave. People go back to complaining about lack of services and stores. Repeat into eternity. Seriously when have you EVER seen certain demographics BUILD upon anything given to them and keep improving and progressing to become better and better rather than seeing something shiny and new and proceeding to strip it down until there's nothing left?
    12
  17. You need more density and better city planning and zoning to make public transit efficient and usable. And more frequently these days you also need to keep transit safer as well from all the violent/crazy/criminals who are on there who could cause harm to riders.
    12
  18.  @Codraroll  I live in Toronto and here we don't have superwide residential roads unless maybe its a newer subdivision. If there are cars parked on both sides of the street you have about 1 1/2 car spaces for vehicles to pass which of course means one person has to wait for the other to pass. It doesn't happen very often, but usually once or twice a winter we have one big snowfall and residential roads narrow alot, especially the closer to get towards downtown which is of course the oldest parts of the city. For me I'm not in favor of superwide residential roads, but I am for them to be wide enough that you can comfortably fit two cars passing each other with one side of the road for street parking and it would be even better if newer subdivisions would have built in roundabouts to move traffic better.
    11
  19.  @geoman798  That would be great, but unfortunately in many suburbs that isn't the case. I live in Toronto and whoever is in charge of zoning and deciding how new neighborhoods are developed they sure as hell don't care about building walkable/bikable neighborhoods instead of areas that require you to have a car to get anywhere in a timely manor. Even in areas farther out that was once farmland that is now being developed where builders and city planners can choose to build however they wish, they still aren't choosing to build new subdivisions that are pedestrian and bike friendly, but rather its still mostly car centric. So if there's anyone to blame its those people for continually building neighborhoods that need cars to get around rather than building with density in mind and making those areas being more pedestrian/bike friendly.
    11
  20. Europe may end up with fewer cars on the roads in the core of their cities, but it will NEVER EVER be car free because all these ideas are mostly only feasible in the very heart of a city where its most dense and busy and it might make sense to drastically reduce the number of cars in those areas. Outside of that core area for many cities, I don't see why many people would want to drop driving if they can afford it. Drive less? Perhaps, but not drive at all? I doubt it. Also outside of enviromental reasons, why stop driving if you actually enjoy it? If I lived in a city with great transit I would consider driving less, but I would NEVER give it up completely when I enjoy simply cruising the streets and going where I want to go without having to be cooped up with other strangers on a bus, subway etc. and being restricted to where I can go based on where the transit goes.
    10
  21.  @enotsnavdier6867  The difference is that in North America the Chinese were poor, and hated by wealthier and privileged white people. See here's the difference between the Chinese and other asians vs so many black people. In the face of racism and inequality, the Chinese could've gotten angry, became violent and started rioting and destroying things until they gained some 'equality'. Instead they chose to spend their time on working hard, getting their kids educated and opening their own businesses to serve their own people. In short instead of getting angry at being mistreated and not having things given to them, they adapted to their environment and directed their energy to building things and lifting their people up. Perhaps black people should try and learn to do that sometime instead of tearing themselves and everyone around them down.
    10
  22.  @pabloaguilar578  I'm not completely against public transit, but far too many people seem to think that transit is the ideal solution to every country's traffic problems without looking at the reality that for many places cars/bikes/small electric vehicles are a better solution. Also crime and violence is a reality that many people face when taking transit and if you don't live in such an area then lucky you, but I really wish you would for a year or two so that you can experience first hand the very real problems and dangers that many people face taking transit in many areas of the world. Maybe then you'll sympathize with people and understand why there are many reasons why transit isn't always the best solution.
    10
  23.  @adambennett805  If you don't mind losing money then sure, build more transit that is mostly empty the vast majority of the day because of low usage. Personally if I lived in a low density area, I'd save up and buy a car ASAP than rely on public transit that's inefficient and takes forever to get anywhere.
    10
  24.  @itsjonny1744  Why not judge WFH on a case by case basis? Namely if some employees have said that they want to WFH and have shown that they're producing as well or even better, then why not let them do so? Even if they're producing slightly worse but they're happy with doing WFH then that's still not a bad tradeoff to have more content workers. As long as people can show that they're producing at nearly the same rate, then it shouldn't matter as much where they do their jobs does it? I think its worth trying if employees want to and see how it goes before saying its a bad idea. As for public transit, I agree trying to implement it retroactively is almost always more costly and that's why you need to build better and high density neighbourhoods so that taking transit is an actual viable option.
    9
  25.  @jasminewilliams1673  But making generalizations about the entire community filled with older citizens, kids, employed people traveling to the white side of town to work less desirable jobs has nothing to do with anything you experience. Broad generalizations. You mean like how many black people do it towards white and non-white people and we all have to go along with or else we're racist? Seems like its always the same few groups of people who are allowed to make broad generalizations of other people without facing much backlash that other groups of people would for doing the same.
    9
  26.  @geoman798  That's great if you live near the downtown of a city that has plenty of shops where you can buy fresh groceries everyday if you want, but if you live in the suburbs its definitely more efficient to drive once or twice a week and buy more at once and hence reduce the number of driving trips you need to make.
    9
  27.  @리주민  That's the thing. Not everyone can live close to downtown of a city and be able to walk a few blocks or less to their local street vendors and buy fresh food from them whenever they want to. In many cities once you go outside of the core, things get much more sparse and it becomes a pain to shop more than once a week unless you have a car. If you live in a city that has high density and many areas that are full of local shops then good for you, but for many North American cities that isn't the case where its often a few areas of high density with plenty of stores that you can walk to for shopping and after that it becomes much more empty and isolated outside of those areas. Those are the areas that many people live in that requires them to have a car to get anywhere in a timely manner. And often even if people do want to live in those neighborhoods where you can walk around and not need a car too much, they can't afford it because housing costs are so high and the only way you can find a home that's even remotely affordable is to live in the suburbs. So again I say lay most of the blame on the decision makers who design the cities rather than the people who have to adapt and live in those cities.
    9
  28.  @IkeOkerekeNews  The suburbs of Detroit seem to be doing better in places, but Detroit the city? If its 'coming back' then why is the murder rate still so high and the population IS STILL shrinking? Such a 'comeback' that it lost 70,000+ people in the last 10 years? 🤔 🤔 🤔
    8
  29. @Futurology Or even better design neighborhoods that don't require much driving or transit to get around to begin with. Build neighborhoods that encourage walking or biking to get to your local store or restaurant or at most only requires a short drive to get where you need to go for your daily needs. Try and get rid of long commutes as much as possible so that you don't need to drive long distances or require expensive public transit to be built.
    8
  30. ​@J B Check the last couple of years and see the crime, violence and murder rates go up significantly. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/us/us-crime-rate-rise-2020/index.html Also why don't you go to the subreddits of various US cities and read what people who actually live in those cities are saying and whether they believe crime and violence is down or not? Why not read their real life experiences and what they see happening in their cities on a daily basis and see if they believe the media that 'crime and violence is going down'? Also its easy to say 'crime is going down' when the justice system doesn't convict people or only gives criminals a slap on the wrist and they let violent people back on the streets even when they're repeat offenders. Seriously go to places like the New York subreddit and see what they're saying there. When even super liberal people living there are saying enough is enough and that they're interested in voting for a mayor that will be tough on crime and violence because they're tired of seeing their city going in the wrong direction then you know something is really wrong.
    8
  31.  @NamelessProducts  How about looking at statistics by areas, regions and cities rather than the entire country? That would be the more accurate thing to do. If there's low crime in the suburbs and rural areas, that's of course going to balance out high crime rates in the downtown of a city for example. New York City and its surrrounding boroughs are very large areas. If you look at it as one single entity then crime and violence averaged out across all those areas would make crime and violence seem relatively low, but if you looked at the crime rates of each area individually then you'll clearly see that some areas are low crime and others are very high crime areas. That's what many people refuse to do when talking about crime, violence and murder because far too often the most crime ridden areas involve the same one or two demographics and to try and point that out is a racist thing to do these days apparently. Also one thing that isn't mentioned nearly enough is the fact that many crimes go unreported and/or the charges are reduced even if the offender is caught and charged. Ask people living in Chicago, New York etc. what their justice systems there are doing with regards to being lenient to criminals and allowing them to be released so that they can offend again and again or else they're given relatively light sentences so that they can be released from prison after a few years so that they can do it all over again.
    8
  32.  @williamhuang8309  You know what's even more efficient? More people working from home so that we don't need to build huge expensive transit projects to begin with. And also get businesses to have more small offices throughout a region so that even if people need to go to an office they don't have to make long commutes to do so.
    8
  33. It might look nice, but is it even safe to visit with all the crime and violence happening in Detroit? Maybe if Detroit can solve that, many more people would feel safe to visit.
    8
  34. I wonder what the crime and violence rates are like in a place like Levittown compared other much more diverse communities? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
    7
  35. US cities: Take down elevated highways because they're ugly and divide the city!! Tokyo: We have elevated highways running throughout the heart of our city and transit rail lines running between high rises and businesses built DIRECTLY UNDER rail bridges and everything looks cool, integrated and pretty.
    7
  36.  @christophershapiro9730  Ask yourself do you truly believe that Gary Indiana is going to improve much anytime soon with the current demographics there? Yes or no?
    6
  37. I don't want to phase out cars because I ACTUALLY ENJOY DRIVING! I mean if you don't care about or like driving then its no big deal, but for someone who loves cars and driving for the simple pleasure of driving, I would never give it up EVER as long as I can afford to drive. 😊 😊 😊
    6
  38. Because its the only way to excuse and justify horrible black behaviors that we would never tolerate from most other groups of people. To even try to hold them responsible for their actions and words the way we do with most other people would get them angry and have them accuse you of racism and that would be a near death sentence to your livelihood if not your personal life as well.
    6
  39.  @austinhernandez2716  You're right everything I've said is anecdotal. Now please put your money where your mouth is and move to certain parts of a number of major cities that are only 'anecdotally' known to be violent and dangerous and live there for a couple of years and see what you have to say? Will you ever do it? Of course not because HYPOCRITES LIKE YOU WOULD NEVER EVER live in the areas with certain people that you defend so much from the comfort of your home that is probably located very far away from those people. And I bet you never will if you can help it because hypocrites like you NEVER do what they preach.
    6
  40. It doesn't have to be that way. Its only that way because the people there allow it to happen and refuse to do anything about it even if it destroys their communities. Poor asian people who came to western nations with little to nothing could've easily fallen into the same trap, but instead the vast majority of them took a different path where they saw a great opportunity to build a new life in a peaceful and largely stable new homeland and they took advantage of it rather than settling in their new homeland and proceed to tear it down.
    5
  41.  @Mgameing123  Sure Denmark is a mostly peaceful and safe place to live and gated communities shouldn't be needed because of that. That's the good thing about living in a nation where most people aren't violent and dangerous. Now what if you lived in places like South Africa or Brazil or other nations that are much more violent and dangerous? I 100% guaranteed you'd be BEGGING to live in a gated community in those countries with full time security patrols to keep you safe. I think many people who grow up in largely peaceful countries often lose sight of the fact that there are many places in the world where things aren't nearly as safe and comfortable as it is in 1st world countries. I think far too many people just assume because most western countries are mostly safe that its the same everywhere in the world and people like these need to wakeup and live in the real world more.
    5
  42.  @nodnoc  Why can't it be both? I mean if you're living in a nice gated community then its obviously also in a nice, safe, peaceful area and probably far away from violent, dangerous people.
    5
  43. To me, as someone who grew up in Europe it's wild that so-called "engineers" think it's a good idea to build highways through cities dividing neighborhoods. Seriously I don't know why its such a huge deal to build a highway through a city if its needed and if its done right. Not saying its always a good idea to do so, but its not always a bad idea either. Tokyo has TONS of highways and rail lines running throughout its huge city and it doesn't ever seem to be a problem. In fact they build businesses under and right beside highways and have rail lines running in between residential buildings. The point is they're not bothered by having these transportation links running all around their city and saying its 'dividing' or ruining their communities in any way and instead they build under and right up to it and it becomes apart of their city.
    5
  44.  @g.m.2427  The thing is cars have their space and pedestrians have their own space and when people start walking onto the road it should be the responsibility OF BOTH parties to prevent accidents rather than completely excusing the stupidity of many pedestrians that if they were simply more alert and smarter about crossing a street, the vast majority of vehicle/pedestrian accidents could've been prevented. Seriously why don't you go out to a busy street near you and try looking both ways several times at the traffic and see how ridiculously easy it is for pedestrians to scan the streets in all directions before they choose when to cross. Compare that to a driver that even if they're fully alert and are moving at a reasonable speed, depending on the weather and time of day it can significantly affect how quickly that driver can see and react to a person who walks in front of their vehicle. The point is that in most cases its much easier for a pedestrian to check and make sure the way is clear before crossing than it is for a driver to try and anticipate and react to a random person who suddenly walks in front of their vehicle especially when the weather is poor and/or its at night time.
    5
  45.  @langhamp8912  Oil companies and their products have alot of downsides, but its those very products that has allowed modern civilization to be created and maintained and for people like you to live in comfort and have a relatively easy life compared to people in many other parts of the world. If you really hate oil that much, then why not give up everything oil related in your life and live in the wild like humans did thousands of years ago?
    5
  46. You know how you can also increase the safety of pedestians? By having people PAY ATTENTION AND LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE AND DURING crossing a street. If people did that, they're chances of getting hit by a vehicle would be extremely low. Instead pedestrians don't seem to want to take any responsibility for their own actions and well being and they want to blame everything on the driver.
    4
  47.  @fuzzyherbivore193  Well its cool you gave up your car, but its not something I would ever do especially since I live in the suburbs. I grew up taking public transit everywhere and it took forvever and it was crap. The one and only thing that I miss about it is seeing random hot girls on buses and the subway every so often. 😊 😊 😊
    4
  48.  @lazyboy300  As stated in the video, doing mobile orders is so easy these days for a number of fast food restaurants. Why even go through a drive thru when you can order on an app beforehand and then when you get there just go inside and sit a few minutes while they make your order and send it out quickly. Even if you order at the restaurant, it doesn't take that much longer to go inside and make the order and then get it compared to going through a drive thru.
    4
  49.  @ampersand2001  You should feel lucky you have the privilege to laugh at such a thing. Violence doesn't just happen, there are reasons. Don't you think its a massive coincidence that violence and crime mostly only follows the same couple of demographics of people no matter where they settle in the world? Its like seeing a particular brand of cars breakdown at much higher rates than other car brands and then getting angry if anyone criticises that brand of car for being unreliable instead of holding that car brand to a higher standard if they want people to buy their cars in the future and not see them as garbage.
    4
  50.  @Mgameing123  Stabbings even perhaps frequent stabbings that we hear about happening in England isn't the same as the near complete lawlessness that we see in South Africa and many other 3rd world countries. Even the very violent and dangerous ghettos in many American cities would be considered 'relatively tame' in comparison to the worst parts of Brazil, Mexico, South Africa etc. where you have to fear for your life on a daily basis. These are the types of areas that some people need to live in to understand how much of the world really is like.
    4
  51.  @AliMonsterTV  Why should a driver be responsible for a pedestrian who crosses a road without looking or is distracted by their music or phone? If they care that little about their own well being that they aren't willing to take even the easiest of precautions to protect themselves then that's their problem. I mean how much is that person's life worth to themselves if they can't even be bothered to look both directions before crossing the street? Also pedestrians can see cars coming towards them very easily. Drivers can't always see pedestrians in front of them equally that easy especially when its at night and people are wearing non-reflective clothing. As a personal example last year I was driving home at night on a major street that wasn't too well lit because some of the lights were covered by the branches and leaves of large trees. The green light was in my favor when all of a sudden I see the faint moving legs of a person walking in front of my vehicle. Turns out it was a woman in her 30s or 40s who was so busy talking on her phone that she didn't realise that she was crossing against a green light. Luckily I and the car in front of me weren't going so fast and we both slowed for her without a problem and she finally noticed the light wasn't with her and she ran back to the sidewalk. Now if I or the other driver had struck her even if we were going at a higher speed, why would it be our fault and not this idiot woman's fault who cared so little for her own life that she didn't even bother looking both ways before crossing and realise that the light wasn't with her? I have no problem with holding drivers responsible if they're actually at fault, but we shouldn't give people a pass if they're too stupid and/or lazy to look out for their own well being and they need to be held responsible as well.
    4
  52.  @muhilan8540  Sure New York is much better than in the 80s, but its still pretty bad in a number of areas and again just go to the New York subreddits and ask the people who live there how they feel about their city. They'll probably say the same. Not as dangerous as decades ago, but still not very safe in a number of places and at different times of the day around certain demographics of people. Ask asian people who live there if they feel safe there even before the increase in attacks against them in the past year or so? They've always been the victims of crime and violence from certain people, but no one ever cared because it went against the narrative that the media and politicians like to push so hard these days.
    4
  53. In many cases creating more bike infrastructure is easy, but city planners and politicians are too stupid to do it. Namely at least if we're talking about the suburbs, hardly anyone will use the sidewalks for walking so why not convert all that wasted infrastructure into dual use bike/pedestrian lanes that are fully separated from vehicles? That would be the easiest and safest thing to do and yet politicians and city planners are too stupid to do it. This is the case in my city of Toronto where the suburbs are literally devoid of pedestrians and the city could simply repave the sidewalks and have instant bike infrastructure that is 1000x safer than trying to bike on roads where cars easily average 60kph+.
    4
  54.  @altrag  Street-level violence is, for the most part, correlated with poverty and low-income communities. Low-income communities also tend to not be able to afford things like proper road maintenance. (Or good schools, meaning the next generation is more likely to remain low-income and continue the cycle for potentially decades, which means higher rates of violence in addition to even further roads deterioration for decades, rinse and repeat.) Absolutely disagree. If you want to say there are more low level crimes like shoplifting, pickpocketing, theft etc. then sure that's believable. But to say that being poor means you automatically become violent and murderous? Nope. That's a product of poor upbringing and shitty culture. There are HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people living in asia who live in far worse poverty than any black person in the US will ever see and yet they don't have even a fraction of the violence and crime that we see in black communities. Everyone wants to blame poverty and supposed lack of support because its easy and it doesn't point the finger at any specific group of people. The truth is some groups of people can live in poverty and still remain largely peaceful, non-criminal and mostly civilized while other groups of people can live with wealth and still be ghetto as hell. All you need to do is look at many of the rich black people in the US to see that being rich doesn't make you more peaceful and less violent.
    4
  55.  @maximilianopena  Every so often I haul something fairly large and with regards to groceries I buy in bulk everytime there's a sale which is why my food bills are so low even though I have a ton of stock in my house. For example I probably bought like 60+ cans of Campbell soup for cheap in the last couple of weeks during various sales and it would've been hell to carry it home on a bus or something instead of sticking it in my trunk and driving it home.
    4
  56.  @pandabear-k7e  Sure it probably is, but nothing will ever beat the convenience of having a car and the freedom that comes with it. Unless you can't afford to own a vehicle there's really no reason not to in the majority of cases. As I said the best reason to not own a car is if you live downtown or some other similarly high density area where everything you need is easily accessible by walking, biking or transit. Otherwise car all the way.
    4
  57.  @TheTroyc1982  Toronto has plenty of housing. The problem is Toronto also has far too many people coming in, investors buying multiple properties and people renting out condos and housing for Airbnb instead of for regular long term renters or for regular people to buy their first home. Also outside of Toronto, we keep building craploads of large homes in the suburbs instead of tall highrises than can house thousands of people. Until we stop doing this we'll never have enough housing, let alone affordable housing. But then why would developers want to do this and make less money?
    4
  58.  @weenisw  That's the worse thing about all these crappy condo buildings. All cheap, generic crap. Toronto had a once in a lifetime chance to build a truly great looking skyline with unique architecture and instead our idiot mayor, city council and planners allowed developers to build largely crap buildings of glass.
    4
  59.  @ezioaugustus2621  If Detroit is such an awesome city then why is its population still strinking? I don't know about you, but 300+ murders among a population of 640,000 doesn't scream 'safe' to me. In Toronto and surrounding suburbs here, people are losing their minds when we have even 100+ murders among a population of 6+ MILLION.
    4
  60.  @night6724  To be fair alot of the times these days black people are seperating themselves from everyone else. Try walking around many black neighbourhoods and see if you feel welcomed by them there. Often find it interesting that black people complain about 'not feeling safe' in whtie neighbourhoods while not addressing how non-black people can't even walk into a predominately black neighbourhood without feeling unsafe.
    4
  61.  @pietr1036  I was just looking up crime stats and who knew that Atlanta's murder and crime rates were nearly as bad as Chicago's? But hey great city to live in right? 🤔 🤔 🤔
    3
  62.  @c.b.3234  Crime comes from poverty. The US prison system isn't designed to rehabilitate it's designed to create even harder criminals. Ex-cons have the least opportunity of anyone. I think people like you simply don't understand that many, MANY criminals are simply not fit for civilized society no matter how hard you try to rehab them. Many people bring up places like Norway and how they rehab their criminals and I bet you a million dollars right now that if you sent America's most hardcore and dangerous criminals to Norway for rehabilitation using their methods, the Norwegians would quickly realize that they need to keep most of them locked up forever. The fantasy that everyone can be saved doesn't agree with reality where many of these criminals are such horrid human beings that they can NEVER be released into public again if you want to keep innocent people safe. Better to just execute them than to waste any more of earth's resources keeping them alive any longer. Of course a city like Gary is not going to spontaneously turn around because it doesn't even have the infrastructure to support a population - it has little to no grocery stores, schools, and shopping, not to mention the actual city infrastructure itself - meanwhile every neighboring city to the east, west, and south of Gary have all of those things. Places like Gary don't have all that infrastructure because anytime anyone tries to build and maintain such things, the people there quickly plunder and destroy it. You could pour a trillion dollars into Gary and build that city up to be new and having everything people need to live a decent life there and then come back in 5 years and see most of it looted and destroyed because that's what most of those people do. On the otherhand you could remove the entire population of Gary and replace them with Japanese people and come back in 5 years and see how quickly it has grown simply because some people in the world can adapt to whatever environment they're given and find a way to improve and make things better by working together towards a common goal. Now it just suffers from the after effects of what I already explained and its entrenched bad reputation from people like you that make up Amerikkka. The bad reputation that America has mostly comes from the demographic that can't settle anywhere on the planet in any significant numbers without bringing huge amounts of crime, violence and other problems with them. As I said China is the only exception to this rule where a large black population is mostly peaceful and non-violent because they know the Chinese don't tolerate their bad behaviors like they do in the west. That's why most of them stay in line there and don't cause much trouble. Of course Gary is predominately black because that's what the historical conditions mandated. Where the fuck else were 20th century black people going to live? As someone else said Gary CAN become a good place to live if the people living there want to work towards that goal. Unfortunately few people there right now want to do that and instead prefer to let things turn to utter crap. It doesn't matter if you move them all to Beverly Hills and give them all mansions, they'll still turn that area into crap with high crime rates. On the otherhand if you bring a decent, peaceful hardworking population to a place like Gary or Detroit or East St. Louis, they'll turn those places into safe communities that others want to move to.
    3
  63.  @queertales  If people were more aware of their surroundings, they would also be much more safe. Seriously I don't know why people continue to think asking pedestrians to look out for their own well being is considered 'victim blaming'? I NEVER said that drivers don't have responsibility in helping to keep pedestrians safe because of course they do, but so do pedestrians too. You can't stupidly walk across the street and think the world needs to stop for you and look out for your well being. How about NOT being an idiot and look left and right for a few seconds while you're crossing and save yourself from a possible world of hurt? Is your life worth so little that you have no problems throwing it away by not taking the most basic of safety measures to protect yourself?
    3
  64.  @latenightthinker4737  Good thing that will never happen. Cars are just too convenient and intregral to life in many parts of the world.
    3
  65.  @latenightthinker4737  'Every country in East and Southeast Asia is planning to follow in Europe's footsteps to slowly faze out the need for cars.' Is that why China is building mega project after mega project of thousands of km of new highways, bridges and tunnels all over their country these days even through the roughest terrain imaginable? Seriously go search 'Chinese highways' or something on youtube and see how many massive projects they have going on for building vehicle infrastructure and then comeback and tell me that they're 'fazing out cars'. 😄 😄 😄 Also I'll bet you a billion dollars that cars will still be with us in huge numbers in 50 years from now. Maybe they'll be mostly electric by them or something, but the majority of people won't ever want to give up their cars if they can help it especially those people who love to drive and don't see a car as simply a tool to get you from A to B.
    3
  66.  @pavld335  Again blame the city planners, the mayors and anyone else who signs off on allowing car centric subdivisions to be continually built and all the developers who keep lobbying for those kinds of neighobrhoods to be built. If all of them would collectively choose to build more pedestrian/bike friendly neighborhoods then we would have much more of those kinds of areas by now. Instead we don't because whether because of corruption or some other reason our city planners etc. keep green lighting detached/semi-detached housing on a huge scale rather than going for more density and it forces people to get a car to get anywhere.
    3
  67.  @pavld335  Of course I want a solution, but as I said that solution has to come from the top namely for city planners, politicians and builders to all stop being idiots and start building for the good of society and its population rather than what's easiest and makes the most money. You can't put all the blame on the general population when no one wants to build more high density communities that are pedestrian/bike friendly that people can feel comfortable in raising a family in. Even if people want to buy that kind of housing it doesn't exist in many cities. So if you want change, ask our planners, leaders and builders to change first and lead from the top down.
    3
  68. The thing you leave out is that many countries don't have do deal with the kind of people that the US and Canada have to deal with who are far more violent and difficult. Then you have countries like Sweden, France and the UK who do have to deal with these kinds of people and look at what's happened to them? Same long term problems with these people who can't ever seem to improve themselves while not destroying the countries that welcomed them.
    3
  69.  @NPRoberto  It just speaks to the reality of humankind where not every race/ethnicity is equally good, hardworking and peaceful and its plain stupid to pretend this isn't true just because you don't want to offend certain people and get them angry and up in arms.
    3
  70.  @edwardmiessner6502  If several decades ago crime and violence was a 10/10 bad, today in many cities its still an 7 or 8/10 easy. Lets put it this way. You SAY that crime and violence is down, but you STILL wouldn't want to move to many parts of US cities and prove that violence and crime has truly gotten better in those areas. Why? Because you know that even if some places have improved abit, its still pretty damn far from being safe enough that you'd feel comfortable in putting your money where your mouth is and moving there because you'd be afraid for your life and your property.
    3
  71. @ Adam Craggs Crossing the street where you want is usually fine, but what's NOT FINE is stupid morons who cross without looking both ways like a sane human being who cares about their own well being would normally do. Instead they're often looking at their phones or paying no attention while they're listening to their music and think that just because they're crossing that they're invincible.
    3
  72.  @AliMonsterTV  Again I don't disagree that drivers have a responsibility when they're on the road, but I simply dislike that pedestrians are given a complete pass on their often stupid decisions and their seemingly lack of care for their own life. Keeping people safe should be a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY and we shouldn't be absolving pedestrians of all their idiocy and mistakes. Also I simply don't understand if you're a person that loves life and wants to live for a very long time that you would do the very thing that goes completely against that. Namely purposely choosing to not do the simple thing of paying attention when crossing a street and drastically lowering your chances of becoming an accident victim. It costs you nothing but a few seconds of your time and attention to save yourself alot of potential pain or even death and if a person can't be bothered to do that bare minimum to keep themselves safe then why should I give a damn about that person's life? And to your deadly weapon analogy, I don't completely agree. As I said before a driver can only be so careful and avoid so much and yet often that isn't enough when pedestrians do unpredictable things. I think its unfair to blame drivers if they're driving normally and being as attentive and safe as they can and then a pedestrian walks in front of their vehicle and gets hit and the driver gets blamed. I guarantee you that if all pedestrians were attentive and alert while crossing a street, even if all the drivers on the roads were horrible the chances of those pedestrians getting hit would still be very low. Why? Because you're paying attention and are able to see incoming threats coming towards you and therefore you have a better chance at avoiding those threats. If you're not paying attention then you have no chance at all which is what is happening far too often, but the pro-pedestrian crowd doesn't want to admit.
    3
  73. I know alot of people seem to really hate the Gardiner, but it is a vital highway that allows people to get to downtown from the suburbs and also for people to get from east to west and vise versa. Removing it would make traffic in the core even worse rather than better. For me though I'd tear down the existing Gardiner because its old and build a brand new one in its place with modern designs and materials. Not one deck, but THREE DECKS high. The first deck would be the same as now and serve people who want to go to and from downtown from various streets. The second deck would be a true expressway that completely bypasses downtown so that people who want to go east-west and not downtown can do so more easily and would greatly help traffic flow. The third deck at the top could be modeled to be similar to New York's High Line park where people and cyclists could relax, exercise and enjoy the views of the city from an elevated deck and it would immediately become a huge tourist attraction. I know such a project could never be done because our city and government have little imagination and ambition to do so, but I think it would ease some traffic problems while creating a new park for everyone to enjoy.
    3
  74.  @Mr.Beanyuwu  Of course it can be done, the question is can it be done efficiently. Maybe in Mexico things are closer together and you have more dense neighbourhoods so that you can walk or take short trips to get your shopping done. Where I live in Toronto, unless you live downtown where the population is most dense, the farther you go away from downtown the more difficult it gets to get where you want to go without taking forever. I use to live closer to the center of Toronto and I use to only take a short trip to some neighbourhood markets to do my shopping or else I would take transit to downtown and get my shopping done since I was already there. However now that I've moved out into the suburbs, things that take a couple of minutes drive can take 10 mins to walk. There's like at least 4 supermarkets that are probably 10 mins or less driving from my house and I could visit a couple or all of them in one efficient short trip. Or else I can spend several hours to visit the same supermarkets by bus and haul all my groceries and other stuff manually. Yeah I think I know which method of travel I'd rather choose.
    3
  75.  @Fru1tpunch  The problem is when you buy what you need, you need to go all the time to shop and its not something everyone wants to do. Also it makes it harder to bulk buy when food is on sale and that means you're wasting money when simply buying what you want when they go on sale can save you alot of cash every year. That alone can offset a decent amount of cost in owning a car in addition to convenience.
    3
  76.  @candyh4284  Well tell that to North American city planners and politicians to design our cities to be different than they are now. Until they change there's not much people can do but adapt to whatever environment they create for us.
    3
  77.  @Furiends  Funny how its mostly only black people who somehow think everything is racist and is against them while most every other minority group feels the opposite and they choose to work with what's been given to them and move their way up rather than complaining that they don't get enough. No wonder everywhere you go most non-black minorities make progress after a few years, while black people are forever stuck where they are decade after decade.
    3
  78.  @RemixedVoice  Ask yourself WHO IS THE CAUSE of that cycle of systemic poverty? Answer its largely THEMSELVES. There are plenty of poor minorities who found their way out of poverty without having their kids turn into thugs and criminals at such a high rate. Somehow its ALWAYS the same demographic that either refuses and/or is utterly inept in doing the same. Also no one said that skin color is what causes this. Its all about the BEHAVIORS of these people and the absolute refusal of them to take responsibility for their children and their communities. And just as bad if not worse, most people refuse to hold them accountable and have the courage to tell them to get their shit together because somehow asking people to raise their kids better to not be criminals and to get them educated is racist and intolerant.
    2
  79.  @christophershapiro9730  Yes most of that demographis IS responsible if not directly then indirectly. Crime and violence at such high levels in their communities can't exist unless people ALLOW IT to exist. Namely if these people raised their kids right to be decent human beings who respected people and had compassion for others, they wouldn't have so much crime and violence in their communities to begin with. Secondly if people actually turned their own kind in everytime they committed crime and violence rather than staying quiet and/or actively hiding them from police, these crime and violence problems could've greatly been reduced LONG AGO. Why do you think some areas have such low crime levels over others? Because people in those communities can actually raise their kids to be decent people rather than becoming thugs and criminals who go out and cause chaos and destruction in their areas. Unfortunately certain demographics of people seem utterly incapable of doing the same.
    2
  80.  @curiousfirely  Ontarian here, but not Torontarian. I would love to see a boulevard instead of the Gardiner. I don't understand the attraction of a boulevard over the expressway. Its a bad idea to begin with to put more vehicles on surface streets and it would be even worse if there's no separation between cars and pedestrians and cyclists. That would not only make traffic worse, but place more people in danger. I'm thinking about University Ave but even larger and wondering how in the heck could that be better than keeping the Gardiner? It would be much worse for everyone.
    2
  81. Lets be real, the majority of people aren't going to reuse, reduce or recycle. You're lucky to even get them to toss the trash in a trashcan rather than on the streets. I think the main way to tackle the trash problem is from the top. Namely have companies find ways to make more enviromentally friendly packaging and products that doesn't take forever to break down and/or can be easily recycled.
    2
  82. I think most reasonable people know why they didn't work. Lets just say if the majority population in these housing projects were Japanese, you'd have a thriving, lovely and safe community that people would be happy to call their home to this day.
    2
  83.  @Harambe_  Drivers are often at fault, but pedestrians are just as often if not moreso at fault because they have complete control over when they choose to cross a street and they have the best vision of the roadway both ways. If people would be more alert and watchful before and during crossing a street the chances of them getting hit are extremely low.
    2
  84.  @Harambe_  Here's how I see it. If there's a vehicle/pedestrian accident occuring on the sidewalk then its the driver's fault. However if there's an accident involving drivers and pedestrians on the roadway then its probably the pedestrian's fault. Why? Because unless you have some disability or you're a senior, for most people if they're alert and are aware of their surroundings then the chances of them getting hit by a car are extremely slim because you can choose where and when to cross, IE choose the best and safest time to cross and thus lower your chances of getting into an accident. Also as you're crossing if you're alert while you're crossing you have at least a decent chance of avoiding getting hit if something suddenly happens. The point is drivers have a responsibility to watch out for what's happening on the roadway, but pedestrians have the responsibility of being careful as they're crossing a roadway. As well I hear many people say 'but the pedestrian had the right of way, therefore its the driver's fault' and I always say WHO CARES who has the right of way when you get hit and end up with serious injuries or even dead. When I'm crossing a road I'm ALWAYS alert and I ALWAYS assume every driver is a crap driver and so I always make sure the way is clear and mostly safe before crossing. When you cross the street with that kind of mindset that you can't trust anyone but yourself, you'll be much safer and much less likely to get hurt.
    2
  85.  @latenightthinker4737  That's fine. Check back in a couple of decades and see how cars are very far from disappearing still and then see what you have to say. Of course China has invested billions in various forms of transport, but they didn't spend countless billions on building infrastructure for vehicles for nothing. They did it because they know that its still the most convenient form of transportation for many people and that its a necessary investment to make.
    2
  86.  @latenightthinker4737  Cars will never disappear. Only evolve. Maybe in a few decades we'll perfect autonomous cars that will drive people around without people needing to be behind the wheel, but thinking that cars will go the way of the horse and carriage? Yeah no. Not now, not ever. Not when it connects so many people in a way that public transit never could in a feasible and practical way and not when it provides millions of people the freedom of movement that they would otherwise not have if they had to rely on public transit to get them around.
    2
  87.  @no_name4796  i eat while biking lol Is that even healthy to do?? I could never imagine biking and trying to eat a burger or something at the same time and wondering if I'm digesting it properly let alone eating it without getting dirty doing it.
    2
  88.  @MVargic  That would depend on the city you live in. I live in Toronto which has an ever increasing amount of people moving to here each year. There are cranes everywhere building condos all over downtown and rents are still generally high in that area. Even outside of the downtown area rent is often still pretty high and very few condo buildings are built for the purposes of affordable housing so even though you see tons of new buildings going up, most of it is still unaffordable for many people living in Toronto or those who want to move here. Maybe if we stop foreign buyers who often buy for investment rather than living from doing so or at least charge them a heavy foreign buyer's tax, then perhaps housing prices might finally come down abit.
    2
  89.  @l0ndon429  Well that's more likely to happen in Europe than it ever will in places like North America where the land is plentiful and even if we should be increasing density here its not going to happen anytime soon. Its unfortunate but that's the way it is and will always be here.
    2
  90.  @sea_yung  I'm saying that practically with anything else in life whether it be products or services or almost anything you can think of, we have no problems with criticizing things and asking for improvements and holding businesses and people accountable when they do bad. When you get bad service you can complain about it. When you buy a product and it breaks easily you can hold people accountable and ask for restitution. However when it comes to holding people accountable for their actions and words all of a sudden certain groups are off limits. If its white people that are violent or committing crime or are racist, no one has a problem calling them out and demanding that they change, BUT when its black people doing the exact same things or worse, far too many people come out of the woodwork to defend their horrible behaviors and make excuses for them and if someone should dare criticise them and try and hold them accountable for their actions they're called racist, discriminatory, anti-black etc. I mean do you not find it extremely hypocritical that we can't even hold black people to the same standards as everyone else and be able to criticise them as we would anyone else if they behaved poorly?
    2
  91. Its not the cities that are the problem, but the kinds of people who live there. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and many countless cities in Asia are VASTLY larger and more densely populated than most western cities and guess what? They still have a tiny fraction of the violence and crime that many western cities and especially US cities have.
    2
  92.  @patbingsoo5219  Yes I'm a racist. Everyone who has a different opinion from people like you is a 'racist'. We must believe everyone is good and equal and ignore real life experiences and facts because those are all evil. Everything I say is so false and racist that even one of the co-founders of BLM who's fighting against all that racism chose to buy an expensive 1.4 million home in a predominately white area instead of living among the very people that she supposedly believe are good people who aren't very violent and criminal. So I guess that makes her a racist too for negatively profiling her own people?
    2
  93.  @Ciph3rzer0  Dude do you not understand that crime can be 'declining' when fewer crimes are reported and recorded? Sure you can't ignore shootings and murders and such, but there are lesser things like assaults that don't result in serious injuries and muggings and the like that are often not reported by the victim because they don't feel like going through the hassle and also when they believe its likely not going to be solved. I live in Toronto and people keep saying 'crime is down' or that 'its still a very safe city'. That may be true for the most part, but if you look at the number of shootings that happen every year, in 2014 and before Toronto was averaging about 200 shootings a year. In 2016 and ever since then Toronto has been averaging 400+ shootings a year including setting a historic record high almost 500 shootings in 2019. So for Toronto they've had 5 CONSECUTIVE YEARS of 400+ shootings with 2021 looking to make it 6 straight and you're telling me 'crime is going down'?!?!? Maybe that's true for some cities, but it certainly isn't the case in Toronto and we haven't even talked about the hundreds of stabbings that happen as well. And the other thing is the public aren't allowed to even know WHO is committing all this violence and crime. In 2019 Toronto police stated they would start collecting race based data again after being prevented from doing so for almost 30 years because a certain demographic got upset. I was looking forward to seeing the stats this year and what Toronto police released in their 'report' was a whole bunch of bullshit that included ZERO ACTUAL CRIME STATISTICS. You know like what the US government releases that shows which race committed the most murders, violent crimes and so on. Toronto police released NONE of that and I'm pretty sure we all know why because in the age of BLM where we have to pretend a certain group of people are victims, its hard to keep that lie going if police release hard data that shows the opposite. The bottom line is maybe there are some cities that are having a decline in crime, violence and murder, but that certainly isn't the case for Toronto where the stats don't lie and even in super left leaning places like the Toronto subreddit, even THOSE ultra progressive people are complaining about how the city is getting less safe.
    2
  94. @Bombing You know what's the easiest way to turn Gary around? Remove the entire current population from the city and replace them with a completely different demographic of people and come back in 5 years and you'll see Gary well on its way to becoming a very nice place to live.
    2
  95.  @OhSome1HasThisName  Not at all true especially when we're talking about the safety part in a number of cities these days. Try taking transit in New York, Philly, Chicago etc. these days and see how you feel.
    2
  96. And likewise many pedestrians are careless. I'll never understand why people who are crossing can't take a few seconds to look both ways before doing so and that would probably prevent 98% of pedestrian/vehicle accidents.
    2
  97. 1:42 Why is Apu's character 'problematic', but most every South Park character which are often much worse not problematic? Glad to see Matt and Trey not giving an inch to the SJWs out there and eventually they scurry away to find an easier target. 👍 👍 👍
    2
  98. I live in Toronto and in the last 10-20 years lots of parking lots, plazas, gas stations in downtown have been torn down and have had huge condo buildings taking their places and guess what? Condo prices have STILL went up by a huge amount in that time. The point is more housing stock doesn't equal lower prices when that housing is being bought by investors and foreigners who want to park their money in something. Also tons of Airbnb and other rental units are taking up those units as well which means people actually wanting to buy to live in those condos are having a hard time doing so because its so expensive. As for retail spaces, its the same story. More space doesn't mean more small retail when the prices to lease are so high as landlords aren't giving small business any discounts which is why so many are going out of business during the pandemic. Only people who can afford those high prices are major big box retailers.
    2
  99.  @Zalis116  In most major US cities in the mid-20th century, there would be run-down slum areas mainly inhabited by Blacks and other minorities. Slums are created by the people who live there, not by the location. Interesting how most minority groups can create communities to serve their own population when they first arrive to a foreign nation and yet a couple of other demographics of people turn every place they settle in into violent, criminal areas that force people to move out if they value their lives and their properties. Since these new suburbs didn't want public transit networks giving minorities access to their communities, urban freeways were the solution for connecting suburban residents to jobs in downtown cores. I think generally its less a conspiracy to build less transit to keep minorities out of wealthier suburban areas and more about people who were earning more money preferring to buy vehicles to drive themselves around than use public transit. the white population moved to the new suburbs, fearing crime or "moral decay" or whatever. And guess what? They were proven 100% right in so many cities where a certain demographic of people is consistently turning every area they move into in large numbers into violent and dangerous places to live. But hey if you refuse to live around people who would do you harm YOU'RE the problem and not those criminals and violent people. Heck this isn't even just white people, but plenty of non-white people as well who don't want to have themselves or their families to live in such violent areas with such dangerous people.
    2
  100.  @Zalis116  Sometimes locations do create slum conditions, as with NYC's 5 Points neighborhood -- it was on the site of a filled-in lake, which led to buildings sinking, methane leaks, poor drainage, and diseases stemming from standing water and mosquitoes. The condition of an area might create slum conditions, but it doesn't create violent and criminal people. You can live in poverty and NOT turn to violence and crime and turn your neighborhoods into dangerous places to live in addition to being poor. All you have to do is look at the countless poor areas all across Asia where hundreds of millions of people live in far, FAR worse poverty and squalor than anyone in any western city does outside of the homeless and you'll see that poverty didn't make all those people turn to violence and crime. Rather than turning to crime, the vast majority of those people simply want a job that can support their families and makes enough money so that their children can get a proper education. And yet in the west certain demographics of people have education, decent housing and other social services handed to them on a silver platter and still they find a way to screw things up and be largely unable to lift themselves out of poverty and crime. My point is that these perceptions and fears, whether they were true or not, played a major role in the development patterns of US cities and freeways, and that their absence explains why things turned out differently in Europe and other more racially-homogeneous places The thing is in most cases these fears WERE TRUE and the statistics have shown this to be fact. No one like living around violent and criminal people and when your area turns to crap where your family and property is no longer safe, then you leave. Its interesting to me that there's only one or two groups of people who consistently ruin places that they populate in large numbers and then cry about racism when others decide to leave for someplace safer. Well if you don't want people leaving then its simple. STOP BEING SO VIOLENT AND CRIMINAL. We have people from all corners of the earth living in the US, Canada and other western nations and its ALWAYS the same couple of groups who have the most problems living peacefully in any country that they settle in significant numbers. Also with regards to many US cities and how they grew to have so much sprawl while the car certainly aided in that, the real reason is that it all comes down to the huge amounts of space available in North America in comparison to Europe and elsewhere. When you have vast amounts of land to build on, people aren't going to be mindful of not wasting it by building with more density rather than just plowing over new areas of land to build on. Imagine if the US mainland wasn't one single country, but instead where each state was its own individual nation, I guarantee you that almost every one of these new nations would be high density because they're FORCED to be. When you no longer have tons of space to waste, you conserve what you have.
    2
  101.  @barvdw  Apartments even if they might be more profitable in the long run, require more effort to maintain and you have to become a landlord. Why would developers do that when they can build some big houses or an entire subdivision, sell them all, make a nice profit and then move on to the next project? Also when we're talking about affordable housing, you're often not dealing with the nicest most peaceful people which causes another problem of crime and violence. Who wants to deal with that when you can move to a nicer, more quieter neighborhood and most of those issues? A few years ago our government decided to build a few new safe injection sites in different downtown neighborhoods promising they wouldn't impact those communities much and now we see that those facilities simply bring in all the drug addicts to the area and they drop their needles and crap all over the place and crime and violence is up in those areas and people feel less safe there now too. The goal of taking addicts off the street and keeping drug use away from the public did the exact opposite. And getting back to transit after having had a car for 20 years now, I would never go back to public transit unless I absolutely had to even if it were a top notch system. If I were living near downtown then that would change things, but other than that I would never give up my car simply because I love driving and its always going to be more convenient and comfortable. Pretty much the only thing I miss about public transit is the random pretty girls I would see every so often during my commute. 😄 😄 😄
    2
  102.  @mohamedaminekoubaa5231  Car share might be a good alternative for some people depending if they live close to a place that has carshare vehicles nearby don't you think? If you live somewhat far away from the nearest carshare place do they deliver the car to you or something? Also it still doesn't beat the complete convenience of having your own vehicle if you can afford it. The simple fact that you can use it at anytime you need it to go where you want to go is the biggest advantage of owning your own car. If I want to just buy a couple of coffees at the local McDonalds, do I really want to go through the trouble of using carshare or getting it delivered? The bottom line is convenience is the biggest advantage of owning a car especially the further away you live from dense areas. I think the best way to eliminate at least a decent portion of car trips is to simply build larger condo units to make it more appealing to raising a family and for people looking for more space and also to have more self-contained communities where you can have many services and stores be a short walk, bike ride or at most a short drive away. Unfortunately I doubt developers will ever want to build large condo units again like they use to when they can build tiny units and still sell them at a high price where I live.
    2
  103.  @singleturbosupra7951  There's a couple of things. First you need to force developers, city planners and politicians to change the way they decide to build cities before anything else. Maybe if they changed then some people might be more open to living in higher density areas that require a car less often. Second as much as the idea of living in higher density areas is good for alot of reasons, many people including myself kinda don't want to and prefer to live away from tons of not so great people. I wouldn't have a problem with living in Tokyo in an apartment for example, but would I want to do the same in downtown Toronto which is my city? HELL NO. The city streets here aren't super dangerous, but they're not super safe either and there are also many inconsiderate and not so nice people that I'd prefer not to be my potential condo neighbours. And this relates to transit as well where I'd rather not share a ride with violent and/or not so stable people. And also I just plain LOVE to drive. Not only for convenience, but for just the plain joy of driving around and I'd NEVER want to give it up completely. Drive less? Sure. But give up my car? I'd prefer not to as long as I can afford to drive.
    2
  104.  @punnequraq  If you buy a good, reliable car major maintanance issues should be minimal and the biggest expenses should be insurance and gas in most years. Also big objects isn't the main reason for having a car. I mean its nice to have say an SUV or something and be able to haul larger objects from time to time, but the main reasons to drive are convenience and efficiency. As had been said many times, unless you live in an area that has great transit, its almost always better to drive. This is especially true if you want to visit several different places in several different areas. Transit will almost NEVER be quicker than to simply driving to those places all in one trip versus trying to go to all those same places by transit. If I lived in a city like Tokyo where public transit was fast, reliable, safe, clean and widespread enough to get you to most places then I would have no problems living without a car, but sadly many if not most places in the world have transit like Tokyo especially in North America and hence cars are still the best way to get around.
    2
  105.  @jellybeansi  Car share might be a solution if it were more widespread. I don't think in many places especially in the suburbs you'll have many convenient car share locations setup so that it makes sense for people to go and use it. Also it still doesn't solve the problem of people simply wanting to take spontaneous quick trips that may require a short car ride and yet doesn't need a car rental. To me the best solution is to still build better neighborhoods that have good density and is people friendly. That's a better solution than almost every other option including public transit that's often not as good as people think it is and that's not including the cost of running the system which is often money losing.
    2
  106.  @kevinaguilar7541  Pretty much every single race/ethnicity has had violence, tragedy and horrors visited upon them in one time of their history or another. The difference is that those race/ethnicities that become successful are the ones that are able to MOVE PAST those past tragedies and they choose to work hard in the present for the well being of their families in the future. The people who are the least successful are the ones who can't put the past behind them and instead forever live in the past and have it define them as a people. Black people and natives seemingly can't go a day without talking about their past history of being victims while asians who have been victimized haven't forgotten their history, just that they believe that living in the past is pointless and that the most sensible thing to do is to work towards a better future for themselves and their society. Its a shame black people can't adopt the same perspective and give up on guilt shaming and grifting off their past and instead concentrate on raising their kids right, getting them educated and having them become decent people rather than growing up to be the next generation of thugs and criminals.
    2
  107. @W Clark This is what happens when you have a stupid and corrupt mayor and city council that's been bought and is also so woke that they spend more time voting on wasting 6+ million in taxpayer money to change a street name that most people didn't want changed instead of properly running a city and building a nice place for people to live. I didn't think John Tory would be a bigger disaster than Rob Ford, but sadly Tory is so much worse.
    2
  108. Tell that to the 20+ million poor white Americans living in the same poverty as black Americans do.
    2
  109.  @blitzn00dle50  The three scenarios you described if people were paying attention to their surroundings they have a chance of avoiding an accident happening to them. If they don't pay attention at all, THERE'S NO CHANCE of avoiding an accident. The point is that if you're attentive and aware at least you give yourself some chance of saving yourself from a bad situation and if you choose not to then you're leaving your life up to other people. I don't disagree that drivers need to be more careful around pedestrians, but to completely absolve people of any responsibility in these kinds of incidents is just plain dumb. Imagine if you're walking through a known dangerous and violent neighbourhood and you had no choice to avoid doing it. Do you think its wise to walk through such a neighbourhood with your smartphone in hand looking at the screen and not paying attention to your surroundings? Probably not right? If you had half a brain you'd probably keep your head up and put your phone away and watch out for any suspicious looking people wouldn't you? So if that's the case why wouldn't you do the same when crossing a street full of vehicles that could injure or even kill you? You can't control everything, but you control what you can. That's the main point that people defending pedestrians who don't pay attention don't seem to understand.
    2
  110. Because whoever manages the traffic in the GTA are ABSOLUTE MORONS. If these people in charge did nothing else but retime traffic lights to mostly favor major roads and give them the most green light time, traffic would be flowing much, MUCH better. Try driving along a major road like Steeles Ave. for a while and you'll see exactly what I mean. Steeles has tons of traffic going east/west and yet lesser roads and even roads that come out of residential neighbourhoods will still have long green lights that run 10-30 seconds that will cause the traffic on Steeles to needlessly pile up while only a few cars are going north/south. If the city's traffic managers weren't such morons, the simple change of giving Steeles Ave. the majority of green light time would immediately improve traffic on that major artery through the city. Now do that for every major road throughout all the GTA and see how quickly traffic would improve.
    2
  111.  @langhamp8912  I agree with you that we need to do much more to keep the planet clean and safe for humans and all other lifeforms, but simply saying 'we need to get rid of cars' isn't the answer and it won't ever happen anyways. Why not think of other solutions to the problem like building better more livable cities that require less car travel and less transit and on a larger scale, stop increasing the human population so dramatically so that we continue to consume resources at a massive rate? ' Right now, because of people like you, we are heading for an outcome where eventually only a small fraction of people can live on this earth at a greatly reduced lifestyle. ' Well is it really our fault that many nations who are poor are usually run by corrupt and incompetent people who also allow their populations to grow out of control? Maybe if more poor nations in the world would control their population growth much better and made better choices for their countries they could have better standards of living for their people as well.
    2
  112. I dont get it. Why waste all that paint to paint the roadway like that? Seems like that isn't very environmentally friendly, a waste of money and time and really isn't necessary. Just put up some concrete barriers for safety, some planters and signs that make it clear that its for pedestrian traffic only. Done and done and save a ton of paint.
    1
  113.  @Aphrx  University Ave. is a lot better than the Gardiner. Hard disagree. Unless you have clear separation between pedestrians/cyclists and vehicles on this new boulevard then it will be much worse for everyone. You can't have people and vehicles mixing and not expect more traffic problems. You also can't have people and vehicles mixing and not expect more chances for accidents. If you want a preview of what a new boulevard would look like then all you need to do is look at under the Gardiner at Lakeshore Blvd. where traffic is bad with traffic lights and also its dangerous for people to cross Lakeshore Blvd because of so many lanes to cross. I'll take the clear separation between people and vehicles over that any day. The only way you could fix this would be to make the boulevard below street level so that you can have bridges for people to cross it at street level. Or else do what Hong Kong does and build elevated walkways so that pedestrians go up and over rather than crossing at street level. Both ways would separate people and cars which is better than having another University Ave.
    1
  114. Its a social experiment that western governments have implemented everywhere and the results are always the same. Certain demographics can't be peaceful and non-violent no matter what country they settle in, unless its in China and then they're very peaceful and law abiding. I wonder why? LOL
    1
  115. The thing is most minorities DO NOT suffer while living in the US. Many are doing very well if not better than even white Americans are and even those immigrants that aren't doing as well financially, the vast majority of them aren't violent and criminal like far too many black people are and as a result most of them are living in peace unlike black communities of whom so many are crapholes to this day.
    1
  116.  @Codraroll  Here its usually the same thing where often the rule is only one side at a time is used for parking, but in the suburbs this isn't always the case when you at times have cars parking on both sides maybe overnight or maybe temporarily when someone is visiting their friends or family and then you have to let one car pass before another can. Either way many older streets in Toronto are pretty narrow and it would be much better if they were wider, but I guess city planners at the time didn't think that there would be that much vehicle traffic using those roads perhaps.
    1
  117.  @matletico  I agree that there are alot of assholes behind the wheel of vehicles, but there are alot of good, decent drivers as well who enjoy driving and do it safely. Also again I'll say until politicians, city planners and developers start building better more people friendly communities nothing will change. I would love to see more of those kinds of communities being built, but the thing is all the people in charge aren't building them. Living in Toronto even when I drive out into new developments outside of the city its the same car oriented neighbourhoods being built even when they could change and build something completely different and far more people centric. Sad to see it, but what can people really do to change things when everyone in charge choose not to change?
    1
  118. 1960s - The people of San Francisco save their city from freeways 2000s - The people of San Francisco allow their city to be overrun with bums, drug addicts and criminals
    1
  119. If those highrises don't fall down because they're poorly constructed, then things will be fine. Most asian people like living peacefully and helping each other out rather than murdering their own kind and destroying everything around them.
    1
  120.  @mukrifachri  That's the thing though. The way the Japanese designed it, even with wide multi-lane roads and elevated highways and rail lines running throughout Tokyo, its stil a great city where those roads and rail lines don't make the city any worse, but increase the ability of their population to move around. Where I live in Toronto, the city only has one elevated expressway running through its city core and yet many people can complained about it and have wanted to tear it down for many years now because it 'divides the city from its waterfront and it looks ugly' etc. To me I've always like the Gardiner and I wish Toronto would have at least a couple of more highways running through it to make traffic flow better. If Tokyo can do it and have it not negatively impact their city why can't other cities do it as well?
    1
  121.  @Jay-ho9io  What racism and classism? Where developers built their highways on cheaper land located in poorer neighourhoods? What other issues were there?
    1
  122.  @mukrifachri  They may not have the big multi-lane highways that the GTA has, but they look to have WAY more highways in general in and around Tokyo. If Toronto/GTA had even half as many highway/expressways as Tokyo and their region had, people would be losing their minds. So yes the GTA might have more lanes on their highways, but Tokyo has wayyy more running throughout their city and suburbs that the GTA does. As for their surface roads well it seems to work for them in that they can have multi-lane roads running throughout their city and yet they have plenty of pedestrian friendly areas branching off those roads too so they seem to have a good mix of both that makes their city very people friendly despite having alot of vehicle traffic running through the city as well.
    1
  123.  @krombopulos_michael  I disagree somewhat. I mean people living in Canada are always going to be the predominate buyers/sellers of property, but that doesn't mean there aren't many foreign buyers who buy real estate here to park their money as an investment or as another home that they can use when needed and these people usually buy in the best neighbourhoods of the GTA and thereby drive up the prices in those communities even faster. This in turn drives up prices further and further out into the suburbs until you really have to go far out to places like Pickering or Oshawa or much more north or west to find something affordable. Also many Canadians buy multiple homes for investment as well so that's alot of properties that are being owned by wealthier people and anyone who's looking to buy their first home is also impacted by that. As for Airbnb, they have thousands of units across the GTA everywhere so that takes away inventory that might otherwise be used as long term rentals or have people purchase those homes for actual living in. There are a number of condo buildings in the heart of Toronto that have tons of Airbnb units to the point that that has become what they're known for and its why they have had a number of violent incidents in addition to the regular noise and disturbance issues that plague people who live there. Also Toronto/GTA is constantly building more condos and housing construction everywhere, but the thing is how much of it is affordable and are the right kind of housing to meet the needs of the people? 20-30 years ago you could buy a pretty decent sized 2-3 bedroom condo that you could raise a family in for not too high a price, but now if you want to buy a similarly sized condo its going to cost you a ton depending on where you're buying. The best way to improve things is to slow down the number of people coming to Canada and the next best thing is to build more condos that are large enough to raise at least a small family in, but what developer is going to do that when they want to maximize profits and sell as many units as they can for the highest price that they can?
    1
  124.  @knockhello2604  Even if you like the city it doesn't mean you have to constantly go down to spend your time there. I live in Toronto and as a teen I use to go downtown all the time to have fun and spend my time there, but now as I've grown up and moved out in the suburbs, I don't miss downtown at all and will be lucky to go down there maybe once or twice a year at most. The suburbs have matured enough to have everything that downtown does and then some, but without the crime, violence and assorted crazy people.
    1
  125. I think alot of people wouldn't mind living in more dense housing and neighborhoods, but the problem is in many cases city planners and developers make crappy decisions that lead to poorly constructed communities. City planners constantly make shitty decisions that force people to rely on cars to get around and developers have little to no desire to build large condo units suitable for larger families to raise their kids in. I mean why do that when you can maximize profit by building smaller one or two bedroom units that you can sell for more money? Also in North America there's still tons of land around so with so much space to build on, there's no incentive for people to build more highrises in the suburbs rather than new homes.
    1
  126.  @ryandomo5018  'The city controls zoning codes and all the regulations that create the American suburban environment, so we should change the rules to allow and encourage more sustainable development.' Changing the zoning laws might help, but I feel its already too late in many places. No one is ever going to stop building houses now and the best you can hope for is that developers will slowly fill in the gaps of already built neighhourhoods with higher density housing. For example in Toronto where I am, I live in the suburbs where its mostly houses and townhouses and some condos and apartments mixed in here and there. Recently a couple blocks away from me a developer tore down a large old plaza on a corner and is now building a row of townhouses. I think that's what we can hope for more of at best because people want will continue to want houses first if they can afford it and then look at other options if they can't. Only way you could ever stop more houses being built and more sprawl from happening is if the local government forces high density housing and with all the land we have I doubt that will ever happen.
    1
  127.  @l0ndon429  Boston simply moved their traffic from above ground to below it with the massive tunnels they've built for vehicles. Go look up the Big Dig and see for yourself what that project was all about. 'Los Angeles 2030 has a clear vision of reducing emissions and encouraging active transport. San Francisco has taken moves to pedestrianise major roads. ' Goodluck to LA in trying to hit those emission goals. If they can do it good for them, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. 'Austin has a $7 billion plan to create a complete and comprehensive with a new light rail, new electric bike fleet, expanded bus services, all electric bus fleet and new and expanded commuter lines, and so much more. ' Its one thing to create all those things, its quite another to convince people to give up their cars to use all those bikes, buses etc. if its not convenient for them to do so. I'm sure people living in downtown Austin will likely adopt to using those things more, but people living in the suburbs? I doubt they'll switch over anytime soon. 'And yes, some cities have continued to build more highways and worse, but the general trend is very clear. Things are changing, they’re not ‘the ways things will always be’ as you describe.' The trend is people who live in the city core and around those areas will use transit and other means of transportation more while everyone else will continue to drive if they can afford to because it will likely remain the most convenient form of transportation for decades to come.
    1
  128.  @l0ndon429  The point is Boston didn't so much as reduce traffic by a ton if any as they chose to simply bury it instead. So I don't know how they're reducing car usage by alot rather than moving it elsewehre. As for LA lets see how things trend in the next few years before calling their measures a success. 'But as you say, people will generally use whatever is convenient for them. Being able to take a commuter train to work everyday for a significant minority of people might mean they get a smaller car instead of a larger one, or go from 3 cars in the family to 2, all important steps and yes these changes will take decades. ' Unless Austin has some expansive transit plan, most people are still going to choose to drive than to take transit which will often if not most times take more time to get anywhere let alone going to multiple destinations in one day. That's the beauty of having a car that I and many others wouldn't ever want to give up which is the ability to go wherever you want to go, when you want to go with few restrictions. I can originally make a plan to go from A to B, but along the way perhaps I see C and decide to drop by for a quick visit first. Then after I visit B, on my way home I decide to visit D and E for abit before finally heading home. All that can be easily and efficiently accomplished by driving to all those places while it would often be very difficult and time consuming to do the same on public transit. And really in many cases no matter how much transit you build, it will never reach the level of ease and efficiency with getting from A to B as you can with a car.
    1
  129. Its ALWAYS someone else's fault and not the people living there isn't it? I bet if you replaced all the people in these projects with Japanese people, today these same buildings would be thriving, peaceful and great places to live. The area would be properous and the streets safe and people would be wanting to move INTO the area instead of running away from it.
    1
  130. I don't mind strip malls, but I hate that so many of them don't have extended overhead coverings over the walkway to protect people from the rain, snow etc. Makes walking around a strip mall a shitty experience in bad weather.
    1
  131. Chicago is definitely OP with violence, crime and murder. Need to nerf that ASAP, but I doubt it will ever happen.
    1
  132.  @shadowvoider  Disproportionately people of color have less wealth, it's just a rebranding of the old system with a new sticker. The same issues of red lining still comes up with as well, then the issue historical white flight from urban regions are intertwined with it. Aren't asians 'people of color'? I don't think many if not most of them are lacking wealth and even if some of them are they certainly aren't blaming others or 'the system' as to why they're not as rich as someone else.
    1
  133. @AndroidsDontDance You do realize that Canada was created in 1867 right? That's 34 YEARS AFTER SLAVERY WAS ABOLISHED IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE. IE Canada was born LONG AFTER slavery was gone or mostly so in the British Empire. So how do you figure that Canada had black slaves in their history when they only came into existence AFTER slavery was abolished? And how come you fail to mention the Underground Railroad? You know that little part of history where Canada took in TENS OF THOUSANDS of escaping black slaves from America and gave them refuge here? Funny how you leave that part of Canada's history out because it GOES AGAINST your narrative that Canada is racist towards blacks. Nice job of not telling the complete truth and maybe YOU should educate your dumbass before trying to engage in a discussion on the topic. >_> And also please show me the proof that Canada was very racist towards black people when they were probably more racist towards Chinese people when they first arrived here and yet you don't see the Chinese holding an eternal grudge against Canada and Canadians. Chinese people chose to adapt to their new enviroment and work hard to improve and better themselves and that's exactly what happened through the decades. Blacks on the otherhand much like the Natives chose to bitch and moan and cry about everything while neglecting to raise their kids properly and now you understand why Chinese people in Canada are successful while blacks and Natives have high crime and violence rates and are doing the worst here. Maybe if these two groups spent less time whining about everything not going their way and more time on raising their kids right, working towards a strong family and a good community they'd be much better off than they are now. But that would require hard work which clearly many blacks and Natives aren't willing to put in.
    1
  134. @AndroidsDontDance First of did you not read your own link with regards to slavery in Canada? Any slaves that were on the North American continent on land that we now know as Canada HAPPENED BEFORE CANADA WAS CREATED. Slavery was abolished among British colonies in 1833 WHICH IS 34 YEARS BEFORE CANADA WAS BORN IN 1867. So how exactly were there slaves in 'Canada' when slavery ended long before Canada came into existence? Secondly there was no massive problem of racism against black people in Canada and you do know about the Underground Railroad where Canada took in hundreds of thousands of escaping slaves from America and allowed them to live freely here right? Does that sound like something a racist nation of people would do? Third black people in Canada have EXACTLY THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES to succeed as any other person in Canada does, but the difference is many blacks don't take advantage of those opportunities and instead turn to crime and violence. Blacks can't blame anyone but themselves for that and maybe if black parents did a better job of raising their kids right, perhaps they'd be better human beings that are more capable of being civilized and educated instead of turning into violent, criminal thugs far too often. Fourth I mention Chinese people because they're the predominate asian group in Canada, but ANY asian group in Canada are mostly hardworking and peaceful and don't cause anyone much trouble. The same can't be said for black people who are fucking up Toronto and pretty much everywhere else they live in Canada with their violence and crime. And YES IT DOES HAVE ENTIRELY to do with some people being able to adapt to their circumstances and othre groups of people being incapable of doing so. This is why asian people who move to ANY country are mostly doing well, while black people who move to ANY country mostly are doing poorly and even worse are turning the countries they settle into worst places than before they arrived.
    1
  135.  @FOOKYOUTUBENUMBERS  I disagree. When big companies pull out of a town that depends on them poverty may happen, but crime and violence doesn't automatically go up by massive amounts just because of that. Its because of a certain demographic of people that turn every place they populate in significant numbers into a violent and dangerous craphole to live.
    1
  136. The city council did a study that found that it would take a 12 lane boulevard to replace the Gardiner; I believe that they've now been renovating it. A boulevard of that size would be horrible and much worse than keeping the Gardiner or building an entirely new one. I don't know why people ever liked the idea of a boulevard unless vehicles and pedestrians/cyclists were completely separated from each other. Otherwise it would make traffic worse and place people in danger when they're trying to cross. Apparently, a developer had offered to put it under ground if he could develop on top, but city councillors are the dumbest people. Do you have a link for this because that's the first time I've heard of it because it would cost a boatload of money to tunnel under downtown Toronto to build such a underground roadway. Hard to believe that many developers would want to pony up billions to build that tunnel before they spend more billions to build on top of it.
    1
  137. At least you have great weather there year round. Winters really suck balls and if I were rich I'd move to a winterless location ASAP.
    1
  138. Unfortunately Toronto is at a low point when it comes to removal of the Gardiner Expressway. The Expressway is crumbling and needs a commitment to either tear it down or repair it. I would tear down the existing Gardiner and build a brand new one with modern materials and design so that it could last decades more. Never understood why people would advocate tearing down the Gardiner to replace it with a boulevard that would both slow down traffic and make things more dangerous for pedestrians/cyclists unless they were complete separated from vehicles.
    1
  139.  @sea_yung  though i do agree that in this day and age, black people are treated as if they're "off limits" to criticism, i think it is valid to a certain extent. as the video describes, blacks have historically been subjected to various racist practices that have unfortunately put them in such a position to commit crimes. I disagree. This is just taking agency away from black people for all the violence, crime and general bad behavior that they exhibit on a daily basis and making excuses for them. In Canada we do this not only for black people, but also for native people as well and we should STOP doing so because its treating these groups of people as if they were children that have no control or awareness as to their actions and words and so we should excuse their poor behaviors as a result. We would NEVER do this for white people and most anyone else and yet its perfectly fine to do so for black and native people here where I am and its just insane. And the sad thing is that we allow this to happen not just in the US and Canada, but pretty much in every western country. Anytime they behave poorly there will ALWAYS be people to defend those behaviors when they would NEVER do it for most other people doing the same thing. Also with regards to 'racist practices' that make black people become violent and dangerous, that's UTTER BULLCRAP and its just another excuse to justify their crappy and violent behaviors. In Canada black people were never enslaved or had any kind of Jim Crow laws pushed onto them. I'm not saying that blacks in Canada never faced any racism or something, but what they faced is basically minor in comparison to what blacks faced in many other parts of the world. In fact so little have happened to black Canadians, they need to grift off of what has happened to black people in the US and elsewhere in the world to make themselves out to be bigger victims than they really are. the way you compare unreliable cars with violent demographics is pretty much saying that these people groups are inherently violent The comparison I was making had less to do with cars themselves and more to do with the company and the leadership in charge of making those cars. Namely if a company puts out an unreliable and/or dangerous car, then you can demand that they fix things or simply stop buying their product. The thing is you can't do that with black people. If they're violent and criminal and you try and hold them accountable for their actions, they call you racist and anti-black. On the otherhand you can't ban them from stores because they keep robbing you and you can't arm yourselves against them because if you fight back and injure or even kill them, well you're in deep shit for possibly committing not only murder but a 'hate crime' as well. So the public is pretty much screwed when living with black people. You're not allowed to demand that they change and shape up and you can't avoid them completely because they're everywhere and you can't stop them from going to the same places that you go to. If you own a store good luck to you because even if you hire security, they usually won't do anything to stop shoplifters because not only can the guards get injured, but also if the guards injure the criminal then the guard and store are possibly held liable and can be sued. Liquor and many other big box stores literally allow thieves to walk out with stuff and not even bother trying to stop them because its simply not worth it these days. The point is with a product or service if its crappy you simply stop buying and the company has to either change or lose customers and money and potentially go bankrupt. With black people you can't hold them similarly accountable and demand that they change because 'that's racist' and yet you can't stay away from them or ban them from places because that too is racist. So people are just stuck with living with these violent and criminal people and they have to do so in silence for fear of backlash for even the most mild of criticism towards them which is just plain wrong.
    1
  140.  @cmdrls212  This is only an issue when you have too much of a couple of certain demographics living in your area. At my local McDonalds, of all the times I've ever gone there its almost always just one demographic of people that causes the most trouble and are looking for a fight.
    1
  141. Boulevards instead of a highway is dumb in many cases. I don't understand how that works for cars, pedestrians or cyclists when highways at least separate vehicles from the other two. Boulevards just make massive stroads with little benefit to anyone.
    1
  142. In Toronto we still have the mistake that is the Gardiner, and while a tiny portion of it was removed most of the elevated part through downtown Toronto still exists. It used to be under city jurisdiction and took up half!!! of the total maintenance costs of all roads in the entire city all by itself. This is why I'm in favor of tearing down the old Gardiner and replace it with a brand new one built with modern materials and design so that it can last for many decades rather than trying to repair the existing one.
    1
  143.  @norman_5623  I don't doubt there are black people who are very intelligent and who have good jobs. What I do question is the AMOUNT of black people who are actually smart and are working in fields that require high levels of education while being peaceful and civil. Maybe where you live the percentage of black people who fit that bill is higher, but where I live and pretty much in the majority of places where blacks settle in significant numbers, this is NOT the case. Maybe all those commercials, TV shows and movies that show black people as being smart, resourceful and peaceful have done its job in brainwashing many people to accept that as representing how the majority of black people are, but if we're being honest and are talking about actual reality, that is NOT the case and never has been. I think Hollywood these days is portraying black people as what they WISHED they were like rather than what they really are. The 'ideal' black person if you will who's smart, hardworking, law abiding etc. Its like they're too afraid to portray black people in any kind of negative light for fear of backlash and the possibility of being cancelled. Don't get me wrong I wish the majority of black people were like what Hollywood portrays, but if you care about the truth then you know that its not true. I live in Toronto which is one of the most diverse cities on the entire planet and we've already crossed the line of being a majority minority city and guess what? Despite only making up about 7% of the city's population, black people still commit the overwhelming majority of crime, violence and murders here and its not even close. Think about it for a moment and realize that in Toronto and surrounding cities where 6.3+ million people live, 93% of non-black people can't even come close to committing the amount of shootings, stabbings and other violent crimes that a small 7% black population commits. This means that the 5.8+ MILLION non-black population here commits less crime and violence than the 450,000 or so black people who live here. This is the reality that this city and its suburbs are dealing with when it comes to black people that no one wants to acknowledge publicly because that would be deemed racist and discriminatory.
    1
  144.  @WoodChoppa911  blaming the whole race is discriminatory. Crime mostly doesn't run in your blood, and definitely not by race. If you say that there are places which have many good black people, then maybe the problem is actually your city. The thing is I DON'T blame ALL black people and I think people like you can't see the distinction between acknowledging the facts and thinking this means you're blaming or demonizing every single black person. When the statistics show beyond any doubt that every year black people commit the most crime, violence and murder for their population size, how is that in any way, shape or form considered 'racist' to simply state what the facts show? That shows that black people have a systemic crime and violence problem among their communities. Sure this doesn't show EVERY black community has these problems, but clearly many if not the majority do which is why black people with the money and means to choose where they live rarely if ever choose to live among their own kind. And its quite funny that even BLM organizers who have grifted hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars off of their sham movement choose to buy homes in wealthy predominately white neighborhoods. That's how little confidence these people have in their own kind to not harm them or their property that they would choose to live with 'racist' white people who supposedly systemically discriminate against them. You can't just blame a whole race just because of the ones committing the crimes, you should look at their background, a lot black people in north america and europe, even in african states, live in poverty because of colonization, slavery, and lastly long lasting discrimination. Do you not see the obvious problem with your argument? If outside factors impact people so much as to cause them to go out and commit crime and violence then ask yourself why don't you see these same crime and violence issues cutting across ALL races/ethnicities who are poor and are living in poverty? We should be seeing at least SOME significant increases in crime and violence among poor asians, Indians, latinos etc. to prove that poverty to prove your point, but the fact is we don't see that. In Toronto we have more poor people living here than the total population of black people with most of them being minorities from all across the world. Yet despite living in the EXACT SAME conditions and sharing the EXACT SAME schools, parks, stores and everything else with black people that they live side by side with, all these poor people DO NOT have the same crime and violence problems that black people do. So answer me how can this be possible? That minorities can live in the same buildings as black people and share the exact same environment and not have their kids turn to crime and gangs and have them carrying guns and shooting people everyday? Clearly this isn't an environment issue as much as its a family issue where black people are piss poor parents to their kids and don't know how to raise them properly on a large scale. That's the main reason that sets black people apart from everyone else. The cycle will continue unless you and everyone else understands that people aren't born a criminal and it's a systemic problem, not biological. I NEVER said that black people are born a criminal, but its very clear that black people do an utter shit job of raising their kids to be decent human beings who have morals, compassion for their fellow man and to know how to make good life choices that keep them away from crime and violence. And its also true that black people have little to no interest in turning in all the thugs and criminals that live among them so that they're off the streets and are no longer a threat to the public. These are all predominately black people problems which is why they're constantly being talked about. The problem is black people instead of acknowledging their issues and dealing with it head on and getting things fixed once and for all, they choose to lash out at anyone who would DARE call them out on their horrible behaviors. Sadly all our politicians, the justice system and the media would rather all be cowards and allow things to keep getting worse and worse than be brave and stand up and do something about these problems because to do so would likely lead to the end of their careers among accusations of being 'racist and intolerant'. So they all pretend that all the problems that black people have are NOT of their own making and that its ALWAYS a variety of external factors that are causing black people to behave this way. Essentially they're treating black people like children who have absolutely no responsibility or agency for anything they say or do. Ask yourself what incentive would black people have to change their behaviors when most people and especially all our leaders are always going to bat for them and defending their actions no matter what they do? Maybe there would be a chance that things would change if anyone had the balls to try and hold black people accountable for their behaviors just like they would hold any other race/ethnic group of people responsible for their behaviors. But doing that would be considered 'racist' as you and many others have plainly stated so instead we allow them to run wild and get away with every increasingly worse behaviors because no one has the balls to stop them.
    1
  145.  @user-gu9yq5sj7c  Yeah, but you saying something racist is not helping and makes things worse. I'm for criticizing and helping anyone. You can do both. How are facts racist? You can dislike what the facts show, but its not racist to state statistics and facts that have been gathered by recognized organizations and the government as being 'racist'. Why not just acknowledge the data and then deal with the problem rather than calling the data racist and then trying to cover it up because it doesn't fit the narrative that's being pushed by our politicians, the media and many in the general public? Lets just put it this way. If the data showed that white people were the most violent and criminal and committed the most interracial crime, you and all our leaders and the media would have ABSOLUTELY ZERO problems with letting the public know about those facts every damn day. All of a sudden THOSE facts wouldn't be considered 'racist' and they would just be facts.
    1
  146.  @williamhuang8309  Seriously if you believe that crime on public transit 'rarely happens', then I invite you to go to the subreddits of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, DC, Detroit and a number of other US cities with significant black populations and ask the people living there whether they believe that crime and violence on public transit is a 'rare' occurrence. I think you'll get a far different answer that will go against what you believe.
    1
  147.  @williamhuang8309  Where do you live? There's a HUGE difference between taking transit in Tokyo vs taking transit in Chicago. Seems like the area you're in is pretty safe. Why don't you try taking the transit in Chicago for a month and then report back and see if you don't have a different opinion? And also I'll say again, we all know that transit works best and most efficiently when there's high density of people. However there are many areas in the US and elsewhere that don't have very good density and cars are almost a must. If you want to change that then you need to change the way cities are planned, but with how much land is available in North America its going to be hard to change developers and people's minds when they're use to having houses. Unless you start building large condo units that can support raising families in that are affordable, I doubt you'll ever get a mass of people switching from houses to condos. Also alot of car accidents are a result of bad road planning and drivers rather than cars being bad themselves. If city planners would switch roundabouts instead of sticking with stupid traffic lights you could probably cut down a huge amount of accidents and deaths in North America.
    1
  148.  @spinecho609  Are you saying wanting to limit the number of immigrants who often have different cultures, religions, beliefs etc. and have difficulty integrating into western countries is racist? If that's the case how come no one is criticising Israel and the Jews for their isolationist and racist immigration policies? Why aren't people like you complaining and moaning that Jewish people need to be more inclusive, diverse and multicultural instead of being so anti-immigration?
    1
  149. How does a highway 'section off areas' when you have plenty of bridges connecting areas over highways? Anytime you see an urban highway there's ALWAYS bridges above to connect one side to the other or if its an elevated highway then you have roads or tunnels beneath it for people and vehicles to cross.
    1
  150.  @jamesbell739  The video explains how highways cut off neighborhoods. That's the exact reason why they are trying to take some of them down. If you need a lesson you can look up urban renewal and redlining, on your own time. I've watched plenty of videos that people have made about how highways 'cut off neighborhoods' and how that may supposedly negatively affect different areas I don't agree with them. If what they said were actually true then Tokyo should be one of the worst affected by this because their entire city has both highways and rail lines cutting through their whole city all over the place. However do you know what the Japanese do about this? Rather than calling it 'blight', they build RIGHT UP to these elevated rail lines and highways and often even build right UNDER these places. Namely you have an elevated rail line above and then a bunch of businesses right beneath them so as not to waste valuable real estate. The point is the Japanese didn't look at their highways running through their city as being ugly and a detriment to their city, they simply adapted and integrated it into their cityscape.
    1
  151.  @jamesbell739  The point is. THIS ISN'T JAPAN..... And the reasoning behind how and why decisions were made is not the same.... You bring up the rail line. Look up the origins of the term "Other side of the tracks" Rail lines were also used to separate residential communities. Only in the US do we have people thinking a physical piece of infrastructure so profoundly affects people's mental state that it completely prevents them from improving the area that they live in rather than letting it turn to crap, rundown and becoming a dangerous place to live. Its like there's no such thing as PERSONAL ACCOUNTABLY where people can collectively choose to let an area turn bad or put in some work and improve the community they live in so that the people on 'The other side of the tracks' actually want to visit or even move to YOUR neighborhood instead of vise versa. Isn't that why there's so many Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Little Japans etc. that spring up in many western cities? Because many of these Asian immigrants who first arrived to western nations to make it their new homes were often not very wealthy and sometimes discriminated against and so they went out and created their own businesses run by their own people to serve their own communities. Eventually people from outside those communities discovered that you could get cheap stuff and services and good food from these immigrants and those areas became prosperous. I wonder if any of these immigrants ever thought to themselves 'Wow this highway or rail line running through or near my area makes it impossible for me to make my neighborhood better, safer and successful!' Yeah probably not. Why not just acknowledge that some groups of people are able to adapt to whatever circumstances they're placed in and make things work while other groups are not capable of doing the same and would rather complain about their poor conditions than put in any hard work to make things better? That's a much more logical and reasonable answer than blaming a highway or road or rail line as to why some communities are so poor and others are successful.
    1
  152.  @ignasanchezl  How successful has 4ocean been in doing this as they've been at it for a few years now it seems.
    1
  153. The reason to get rid of the Gardiner is completely opposite: It's entirely too small for Toronto, and there is physically no room for a larger highway. It's also incredibly expensive since it's elevated. I know it would never happen because of political and financial reasons as well as some public pushback although others would be in favor of it, but I'd tear down this Gardiner and build a brand new one with modern materials and design so that it could last decades and make it THREE DECKS. Now hear me out. The first deck would serve the existing purpose of moving cars into and out of downtown as it does now. The new second deck above it would be a true expressway completely bypassing downtown so that those people who want to go straight through the city east-west can do so without getting mixed with traffic trying to go downtown. The top deck would be a new park similar to New York's High Line park where people, cyclists, small e-vehicles etc. can relax, enjoy the views of the waterfront and city from an elevated position that would immediately because a huge tourist attraction as well as a place for Torontonians to use to get around town with in a direct path from east to west. I know plenty of condo people and others wouldn't like it, but I just think it'd be so awesome to see Toronto from several stories up and have such a park right in the heart of the city.
    1
  154.  @altrag  There is still a correlation though, especially in countries with high numbers of firearms. Being poor is stressful, and stressed out people are more likely to "snap". Except there isn't. You really need to get out of your bubble and see how literally HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of asian people are living in poverty in their countries that don't become violent people. There's very few if and black people living in a western country that lives in worse poverty than countless millions of asian people do and yet those asians living in absolute squalor still don't grow up to be violent and criminal like other groups of people do. Also blaming guns is just another excuse when violent people will be violent with or without weapons around them. How many times have we seen asian and other people get randomly punched and assaulted and the majority of the time it was with fists and the perpetrators were black? Its always interesting to think that if the majority of these kinds of attacks were carried out by white people that we'd hear neverending crimes from our politicians, the media and the victims that white perpetrated hate crimes against minorities must end and how we need to fight against 'white supremacy' and all that stuff. And yet when its black people behind the majority of these crimes all these same people go radio silent because they're too scared to speak up for fear of getting cancelled. On the other hand, there is almost zero research showing "black people are inherently more violent", and the vast majority of what there is in that vein is from 100 years ago when people were using "science" to "prove" their bigotry. Pretty much all such research has been discounted. Whether or not black people are 'inherently more violent' can be debated. What CANNOT BE DEBATED is that far too many of them make poor life decisions and do things that keep the problems they face going rather than fixing those issues. Doing an utter piss poor job of raising your kids and not getting rid of all the criminals and other bad people in your neighborhoods is something most other groups of people don't do. And I mean, if you paid attention to anything other than skin color you'd notice that poor white people are just as prone to crime as poor black people. 100% false. Find me any poor white community anywhere in the US that has a crime and violence rate that comes close to the crime and violence rate of black people? You can't. I've tried to find it and have yet to do so. If you can find it then please post the links here became I'd genuinely like to read about it. The existence of shitty humans is function of humans being humans, not a function of melanin concentration). No one ever said that a person's skin color makes you more prone to being violent and criminal, BUT its pretty damn clear that black people are among the most violent and criminal no matter where they go in the world because of their poor life choices and inability to raise their kids properly to be decent human beings with morals and compassion for their fellow man. I live in Toronto one of the most diverse cities on the planet and yet the vast majority of violent crime is still committed by black people here. People from all over the world can come to this city and find a way to largely co-exist with each other in a peaceful and civilized manner except for one or two groups of people who can't do the same or even live in peace with their own kind.
    1
  155.  @JamilLynch  Zoning laws in Japan permit that. Zoning laws in the states prohibit that. Do you mean building structures near a highway or something else?
    1
  156.  @barvdw  While I agree that local ideas are possible, those solutions are mostly for those particular areas and I doubt it can become a national solution. Alot of the things mentioned like more bike infrastructure, more density and increased transit etc. mostly works in big cities and it would likely be pretty expensive to build and maintain outside of those dense areas. I live in Toronto which is Canada's largest city and outside of Toronto itself, once you get into the suburbs transit becomes very unprofitable and inefficient. When I was living near downtown many years ago taking transit while abit inconvenient, wasn't too bad and it made sense to use it when it was cheaper than driving and I traveled to downtown regularly. Now that I've moved into suburbs that are farther out, taking transit is pointless when its hugely time consuming and inefficient. Again blame the city planners for not continuing to build density and instead turning to building much more housing and spacing stores and services so far apart that makes a car the most efficient way to reach them. Right now I can drive to most stores in my area within 10-15 minutes and do one trip to reach them all and do my shopping in them all within a couple of hours. If I were to attempt to make the same shopping trip relying on transit, it would take me most of the day and wouldn't even be able to carry home a half of what I could carry in my car. Also with regards to building more housing, there's constant building of houses and condos in Toronto and its suburbs and its never ending here. The problem is much of that isn't affordable. Who wants to build cheap housing for people when you can build high priced properties for people with money and for investors, both foreign and domestic? Maybe if Canada stopped allowing so many foreigners to buy up property at will as investments, perhaps Canadians who actually lived here could afford some of that new housing that keeps being built.
    1
  157.  @barvdw  I agree that less traffic would be ideal, but I'd say there are other ways to accomplish that than simply saying less cars is the only way to do it. For example building more self-contained communities where many of your services and stores are located in or near a neighborhood so that you can either walk/bike to those businesses or take only a short drive to them thereby lowering the amount of time a car is using the roads and leseening the traffic. Another thing we can do to lower the traffic significantly is simply improving the traffic timings of lights at intersections and building more roundabouts. It pisses me off to no end to see the light in front of you go green only to see the light ahead of you turning red, stopping your progress and creating unnecessary car traffic and this is especially true at night when a main road has a red light while cars are piling up and you see a small road getting a green for 20 seconds with barely any cars going in that direction while you wait for no good reason. How easy would it be to simply designate major roads to have traffic light piriority and give them the bulk of the time where the lights change to promote more continuous flow of traffic on these main roads to keep cars moving. Even better would be to build more roundabouts in new subdivisions so that traffic will be even more improved without the use of traffic lights and saving on electricity and traffic light costs as well. Simple changes like this can vastly improve traffic flow immediately with relatively limited effort compared to changes like building massive transit projects that would take forever to implement and have less impact than one would believe those kinds of projects would have in the suburbs.
    1
  158.  @FIVEFIVEFIVE-v1p  Blame city planners for creating the problems to begin with. I'm in Toronto and if you live downtown then not owning a car is fine because everything is close to you. If you live farther out then it gets more difficult and if you live in the suburbs it becomes almost a necessity if you don't want to take forever to get anywhere. Where I live I'm within 5 mins driving distance of two supermarkets for example. It would take me about 20 mins to get there by bike. Not that bad, but it does become a problem when you start carrying a fair amount of groceries and things get even worse during the winter when you have to battle the cold and the snow. About 15 years ago when I lived elsewhere and before I got my first car, I use to take 15 mins to bike to a supermarket near me and let me say it was HELL doing it in the winter. Once I got my car it took less than 5 mins to get there and driving opened up a whole new world that I didn't even realize. All the places that for years would take forever for me to get to by bike or transit all of a sudden only took 10-20 mins. Going to several locations in one trip was so easy and fast. Driving to one of my friend's house took only about 30 mins by highway while back in highschool when I went over to his place by transit took almost 2 hours. Really unless you live somewhere with really good transit and with stores near you, there's no reason not to drive if you live elsewhere when its just plain so much faster and convenient.
    1
  159.  @jesseperez4185  I'm going to dispute you on the its cheaper to eat out in Japan part. Unless you're buying the best and most expensive ingredients there's almost no way that its cheaper to eat out than it is to cook one meal and then eat the leftovers for several days. I do that all the time. Make one batch of food that will last me for a few days so that I only have to cook like 2-3 times a week at most. No way doing that is more expensive than eating out or getting food deliveries all the time and its definitely more healthier too. Also buying in bulk DOES save money and now with inflation making everything more expensive it makes more sense than ever to see if there's anything on sale each week and then stock up on it rather than buying a little bit that will only last you a day or two. Seriously try comparing prices from your local grocery store and your big box store and in many if not most cases food will be cheaper at the big box stores. I want to support small business, but at the end of the day saving money is my main concern when as I said everything including food prices are going up. Also if the goal is to reduce the number of cars on the road, how exactly are we doing that when you have so many delivery vehicles on the roads driving everywhere to bring stuff to people's doorsteps these days? Its like moving factories overseas so that your land and air doesn't get polluted, but land and air elsewhere in the world gets polluted instead. The same with deliveries where you make one less trip in your car only to be offset by someone else having to make that trip for you and you're paying them a few bucks to do it. At the end of the day pollution is still created just not by you personally so that's suppose to be better? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
    1
  160. @You can eat in class!! Unless where you shop has consistently low prices, why would you shop frequently and pay more? I'm in Toronto and smaller grocery stores sometimes have deals, but its the bigger supermarkets where I buy in bulk when something I like goes on sale. For example I love my Campbells Chunky Soup. Small grocery stores might have it, but they sell it at high prices. On the otherhand I can just wait until it goes on sale at a big supermarket and drive there and buy several dozen cans and stock up for long term. That's the advantage of being able to drive to where the deals are especially with recent supply chain issues that are driving up the prices of many things. Personally I would love to live in a neighborhood that is more pedestrian and bike friendly, but thanks to our crappy city planners and developers who keep building crappy car centric subdivisions this won't happen anytime soon until they change their ways. So as much as I would like to drive less to get around, where I live its simply not possible and transit isn't the answer here either.
    1
  161.  @grassytramtracks  The way things are in North America isn't ideal, but its become that way because of the size of our lands and also the decisions made by our politicians and developers. I don't think people from other parts of the world who live in high density countries appreciate just how large North America is and how difficult it is to get around the country. Increasing density within our cities would be great, but when you have so much land available people just tend to naturally spread out and our city planners and politicians never chose to change that. Also as great as it would be to live in higher density areas, most people can't afford to buy or even rent in those areas anymore because of how insanely expensive housing has gotten. I think there are tons of people who would love to live in the city, but most can no longer afford to and living further out is the only answer.
    1
  162.  @grassytramtracks  In many cities of North America, if you live within walking distance of many stores, many people probably aren't going to be able to afford to live in those areas as housing prices go up. Many people DO want to live in the city or around areas that have higher density and have services and stores near them. The problem is that in many areas, places like that are going up in price quickly and its outstripping people's wages so that they have no choice but to live elsewhere.
    1
  163.  @alec_cooking_channel  Apparently many people disagree with you when so many WANT to continue to work from home and avoid wasting time travelling to and from work. Heck there are 100,000+ government workers on strike right now in Canada where one of their demands is for the choice to continue to work from home if they want to. Some people don't mind making the commute and going into the office to work there and interact with people and others prefer to not have to rush to get to work on time and instead do it from the comfort of their own home. It sucks for businesses that rely on workers to go to their establishments to spend money there, but at the same time its helping the environment and reducing traffic like we all wanted isn't it?
    1
  164.  @alec_cooking_channel  Even with great transit I think many if not most people would still choose to work from home most of the time if they could with only going into the office for a couple days at most. If that wasn't the case so many people wouldn't be fighting to keep the option to work from home with their employers instead of rushing back to the office. I mean why waste time getting ready in the morning, then potentially riding a full bus or train of people to the office when you can take your time getting started during the day? As I said maybe more businesses should consider smaller satellite offices so that workers can make shorter trips if they want people to go to the office.
    1
  165. That's what happens in most nations where you have plenty of land to spread out on. They'll tend not to build up density in those places. Move the entire US population into a country the size of Japan and you'll bet your ass that there will be high density dwellings everywhere.
    1
  166. In most parts of the US there's plenty of land to build on so the need to increase density and efficiency is less pressing. Until city planners start forcing increased density and discouraging low density subdivisions then nothing will change. Also these days planners and developers aren't making neighbourhoods more livable when they don't create good mainstreets and other areas of interest for people to want to walk and bike locally and instead people are more likely to drive to go for their daily as well as entertainment needs.
    1
  167.  @kevinaguilar7541  I believe you're basing this on unfactual media with its bias and enivitable under representation. I was in a highschool that contained 60% Africa Americans. At least to the friends, acquaintances, and overhearing, not one ever complained to me that it's the white man's fault. How far back are we talking about when you say you were in highschool? Also maybe where you went to school they don't blame white people, but in recent years more than ever where I live in Toronto, almost EVERYTHING is being blamed on white people and particularly white men and its coming from not just black people, but from native, muslim, LGBT and women as well. There almost isn't a day that goes by where someone isn't blaming something on white people and how horrible they are. It really is quite a sight to see how willingly white people largely accept getting beat up so much with relatively little push back and the few that actually do try and stand up, they're immediately beaten back down and told to shutup. I have black neighbors on the right side and in front of me. From what I understand, they're pretty successful. I never said that there aren't successful black people and I don't doubt there are many out there, but relatively speaking they're still vastly dwarfed by many not so successful and very violent and criminal black people which is why their crime rates are so high. And another thing white people are the dominant ethnicity of the country, and thus have a undeniable advantage in pursuing a successful life. The laws and society were founded by white people and it is bias for them. Here's the thing. I believe US and Canada as well are some of the most fair countries when it comes to treatment of minorities and if anything in many cases they bend over backwards to help them in favor of other Canadian people. Even if it isn't 100% perfectly equal, its pretty damn close and its why so many asian and Indian people who live in western countries become successful and self-sufficient and often even more successful than white people are. The system is there for everyone to take advantage of and we live in largely peaceful countries even if certain people are hellbent on turning it into crapholes and what many people refuse to recognize is that some groups of people simply choose to work hard and get educated and make a life for themselves while other groups want practically everything handed to them on a silver platter and EVEN THEN THEY STILL COMPLAIN that its 'not enough'. A prime example is the difference between Somali and Syrian refugees in Canada. Somali refugees have been in Canada for 30+ years and they're still at the bottom in progress and still are at the top in crime and violence and if anything they're getting even more violent these days. In contrast the 70,000 Syrian refugees that Canada took in since 2016 are progressing pretty decently and although some Syrians are doing better than others, the main thing is that the amount of crime and violence from them are extremely minimal. Both groups came from war torn countries to a nation that welcomed them in and yet one group of refugees decided to bring the violent and criminal behaviors from their home country to their new country and have made things worse here. The other group is actively trying to get themselves educated, working and are seeking to cause as little crime and violence as possible and so far they have. Both groups have the same opportunities to become successful in Canada and yet the Syrian refugees have probably accomplished more collectively in 6 years of living in Canada than the Somalis have in 30+ years and they've done it without all the crime and violence. One group chose to take advantage of the opportunities given to them in their new home and the other chose not to. The point is even if you believe white people have the advantage in western countries, there's still plenty of opportunity for everyone else to become successful if they're willing to work hard at it and its why asian people are consistently at or near the top in success nearly everywhere they go and settle because all they want and ever asked for is the chance to improve their lives. In contrast we have blacks and native people here who demand everything be given to them and EVEN THEN with endless amounts of help and affirmative action they STILL end up at the bottom in terms of having their people become successful, mostly problem free and peaceful. This isn't the problem of the government and the system not giving them enough help, this is a problem of some groups of people making extremely poor life choices and not willing to accept the consequences of those choices and even worse most people are more than willing to make neverending excuses for them rather than holding them accountable like we do for most other people.
    1
  168.  @thespanishinquisiton8306  Most people on the Gardiner drive to or from downtown Toronto, not through the city, butmost people in downtown Toronto arrive by transit. I disagree. There's quite a few people who drive straight through downtown and use the Gardiner to go east-west. I don't know why people would ever think replacing the Gardiner with a boulevard wouldn't be much worse unless vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists were completely separated from each other.
    1
  169. @Tekuani Aakab Compton is what happens when you historically refuse to integrate businesses into your urban landscape, enforce low density housing, and perpetuate systemic inequality. Here's the thing. Why can't black people get together and make things happen ON THEIR OWN instead of relying on racist white people to do it for them? You know like how asian people have been doing for decades everytime they immigrate to a western country. They don't wait for people to hand everything on a silver platter to them before they can start to succeed. They go out and make things happen for themselves and for their communities which is why there are Chinatowns wherever Chinese people settle in significant numbers because they create businesses and social services that serve their own community rather than waiting for people to build it for them. And you know what the funny yet sad thing is? People can actually build all these things for black communities and they still mess it up and tear it down. Kinda like how Walgreens put stores in poor areas to try and help those neighborhoods and instead of people being happy and taking care of these stores, the people there do what they always do and plunder and rob these stores until they close down and then they again begin the cycle of whining about 'lack of services' in their communities and attribute it to 'systemic racism'.
    1
  170.  @ARTiculations  Do you live in Toronto/GTA? If so you can just drive around for a while and see for yourself how poor the traffic light timings are in many places here. Like I said it makes no sense that roads that have relatively few cars on them are given the same priority as major roads when simply changing that one thing would improve traffic flow so much better.
    1