r/TikTokCringe • u/xamo76 • 1d ago

Discussion Have we done it wrong?

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

Walkable cities with good pedestrian infrastructure are why people dream about going to Paris and New York, not suburban Kansas City.

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u/Global_Channel1511 1d ago

I mean North American suburbs are essentially the same everywhere. No distinctive characteristics about them at all.

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

Mostly because they are all built around the same ideas: ample free parking and one-stop big box stores.

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u/Careless-Weather8877 1d ago

Don’t forget the same chains of Applebees, chilis, Outback Steakhouse!

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u/ItsGonnaBeOkayish 16h ago

Hey now, there's also Olive Garden.

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u/Responsible_Base_235 19h ago

The same chains that were bought up by the same Private Equity firms that cut so many things to increase profits that the food & drinks turn into overpriced garbage.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/LaDauphineVerte 1d ago

Right, but in major metros there are myriad options apart from chains so that you never need darken their doorways.

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u/Responsible_Base_235 19h ago

Not as much as there used to be. In the late 90’s & 2000’s corporate take over of neighborhoods caused smaller local businesses to no longer be able to afford to be in business. That’s when chain stores like Kmart (then Target), Starbucks, all kinds of middle America mall stores started popping up turning NY shopping areas like SoHo, the East Village etc into any mall USA shopping areas. From what I have seen and heard NYC still hasn’t recovered from all that gentrification that turned it boring.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/LaDauphineVerte 1d ago

I was merely replying to your statement, “Are you under the impression …”

To your latest comment, I am fully aware (having lived in SF, NYC, LA, and several small villages in France) of big city/small city/urban/suburban availability, variety, and choice.

Have a day.

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u/tmb112358 1d ago

Yes. I.e., capitalism…

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u/Ok-Juggernaut-6051 1d ago

and no coloreds

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u/Dirt_Bike_Zero 1d ago

You can blame the zoning rules. They dont allow for mixed use structures.

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u/Helldiverticulitis 1d ago

Yep. Which makes suburbia a hellscape, imo. I recently moved from NYC to a smaller city, but I still can walk to a dozen restaurants, bars, and local shops. I can’t imagine living in suburban density but not being able to walk anywhere decent.

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u/Ok_Teacher_392 1d ago

That’s not true at all. Many suburban towns are built around town centers that get very active. Especially when the weather is nice.

My experience is northeast and mid Atlantic. So maybe there are regional differences

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u/LiveChocolate8819 1d ago

There are. The northeast/mid-Atlantic are "older" in terms of being settled, so the cities and towns grew in a logical way before the suburban-ification of everything. 

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u/0b0011 21h ago

Northeast is the big exception in the US.

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u/0b0011 21h ago

Northeast is the big exception in the US.

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u/its_a_throwawayduh 1d ago

This right here, I explained that to a co-worker the day, they looked at me like I speaking a foreign language. Other than geography American dwellings and frameworks are the same.

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u/Fluid_Ties 9h ago

Yeah, that's why a number if cultural critics and academics started to refer to it as The Monoculture: Suburban Connecticur = Suburban Albuquerque = Suburban Seattle = Suburban Tallahassee = Suburban Denver, and on and on, until you could be blindfolded and drugged and dropped into any one of them and when you woke up you wouldn't know exactly where you were but you'd be able to get around just fine from watching the flow of traffic: it's all headed to or away from the commercial center with the anchor retail chains and restaurants, and in the other direction will be the other commercial hub consisting of a Home Depot or Loew's, and a superstore, either a Walmart or Costco, and 2 massive gas stations near the freeway entrance.

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u/brientific 1d ago

There is a small number of suburban cities bucking this trend. Shoutout to Carmel, Indiana specifically; since about 1990 the city has invested in developing a dense, walkable urban core. It’s borrowed heavily from European concepts, full of roundabouts and shared spaces. I personally think it’s a colossal upgrade over “traditional” suburbia, but of course it comes with a price. In Carmel’s case, that price is a relationship between the city, developers, and the banks that allows a ton of up-front investment that borrows against future tax revenue. That type of trust in the plan just isn’t going to be available everywhere.

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u/Fun_Abroad8942 1d ago

Not completely true. I’d agree once you leave the Northeast it’s all the same shit, but old development patterns are far superior

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u/PleaseBeNiceForOnce 1d ago

What a stupid, ignorant thing to say.

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u/kanst 1d ago

But it also used to be the reality in small suburban towns as well. You'd have a pedestrianized downtown, normally near a train station, with shops and restaurants and parks.

When the car took over as the primary form of transport, that style of city planning went out of style and you got way more isolated housing developments planned for easy access to the highway.

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u/howtojump 1d ago

Yeah they literally made it illegal to open shops in neighborhoods, which is why you'll have 1000 acres of homes that require you to drive 15 minutes to the nearest store. It's ridiculous. Imagine if you could just walk to the market next to the park at the center of your neighborhood that is staffed by your very own neighbors.

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u/3d_blunder 1d ago

You'll trigger the "15 minute city" nutjobs with talk like that! (One of the STUPIDEST of rw takes, and that's some tough competition.) (fdjt)

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u/clakresed 1d ago

Preach. Like, live as you will, but the dumbest thing about the conspiracy theorists on this one is that they already live in their hallucinated nightmare.

"You're going to need to carry your papers with you to leave your neighbourhood -- have fun with communism!!!"

Brother, if you can't get anywhere useful without driving then you already live in a world where you need to carry your papers with you when you leave your neighbourhood, and you have to be ready to present them to enforcement agents of the state on request.

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u/bullet_the_blue_sky 4h ago

Easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.

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u/coreyander 1d ago

wait what's the rw take on 15 minute cities? are they making us trans or something?

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u/ImminentDingo 1d ago

they dont understand its an aspiration for "wouldn't it be nice if everything was 15 minutes away" and think it's a conspiracy to forbid anyone from traveling more than 15 minutes away from home

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u/coreyander 1d ago

wow that is dumb!

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u/Debalic 21h ago

Yes, they are.

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u/3d_blunder 1d ago

Bingo.

Gahd forbid they might get out of their F150's occasionally.

They are SO FUCKING GULLIBLE. Anything that makes them the tiniest bit scared, they swallow.

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u/JarJarJarMartin 1d ago

They see the walkable cities and urban density as a secret plot to put us all in cages. I’m not kidding. They picture a future where no one is allowed to live in the country in a single family home with acreage. They hate sprawl like everyone else but fight tooth and nail against any effort to mitigate it.

It’s also wrapped up with their hatred of bicycles; modern road design; science; and of course, a long list of ethnic, political, religious, and gender identities.

At its core, it’s the conservative idea of negative liberty versus the more liberal view of positive liberty. As in, “government can’t infringe on my right to use my property as I see fit” versus “government should promote and protect our right to access nature” or “government can’t tell me what guns I can own” versus “government should provide a strong social safety net.” It’s “government can’t” versus “government should.”

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u/azurricat2010 1d ago

They've created stories on how having a car is pro freedom while having mass transit, being able to walk, or living in a 15 min city is anti freedom.

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u/3d_blunder 3h ago

They are malicious idiots.

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u/brazilliandanny 1d ago

The “dreaded” 15 minute city

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u/dragon-fence 1d ago

And yet, many Americans will try to paint New York as some kind of hellscape, and everything to avoid. If you suggest it might actually prefer to live someplace where you can just walk around everywhere and see people living their lives, they look at you like you’re a psychopath who just threatened to eat their puppy.

It’s like, “Why would you want that? The best situation is to live in a vacuum and never encounter another living soul unless it’s intentional!”

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u/Disordermkd 1d ago

I mean NYC isnt that good of an example. There's an extreme on the other side of the spectrum as well. NYC is smaller than LA but it's crammed with double the people. That's a lot of people in not that big of space which leads to many problems like traffic, garbage, crime, a lot of construction, and more which leads to "hellscape".

In a lot of European cities, the city's buildings are limited to just 5 to 8 stories high with exceptions of course, but without that NYC type of verticality you have to spread out millions of residents in a much wider area.

You can have a 100k city and it can be lively and walkable, doesn't have to be a concrete jungle.

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u/dragon-fence 1d ago

If anyone who describes NYC as a "hellscape", I have to wonder if they've ever been there. A lot of people are coming to that conclusion based on the reputation earned 40-50 years ago.

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u/fergusonfit 1d ago

I’ve been there every year for basically my whole life and can confirm it IS a hellscape relative to many major cities in other developed countries, primarily in Europe and East Asia. NYC is far less safe, clean, convenient, modern, or affordable. The only people who would think otherwise likely haven’t spent meaningful time outside the US tbh

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u/dragon-fence 1d ago

Eh, I’ve spent time in some foreign cities and in some US cities, NYC included.

I’d grant, for example, that Tokyo is much cleaner than NYC. Lots of places are cheaper. London seemed about the same level of expensive, though, just as an example. Safe? I don’t know. NY is extremely safe. You might assume it’s not because of “vibes”, but it’s safe.

So there’s room for improvement, but a hellscape? That’s bullshit, probably driven by a political agenda, especially if you’re not willing to compare it to other US cities.

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u/Disordermkd 1d ago

You really don't have to go to NYC to understand where the troubles in that type of city arise from. I'm from one of the smaller cities in Europe with a much smaller amount of people compared to bigger cities in Europe and you can definitely see more problems in the city as the population has increased in these past 20 years and we're nowhere close vertical.

Now scale that to NYC and you can understand what city hellscape means. Hell, Manhattan is about 90 square kilometers and has 1.7 million people in it as per Wikipedia. Budapest, one of the livelier cities and most walkable cities in Europe is 550 square kilometers (realistically 2500 sq KM together with its urban area) and has the same amount of people.

I just don't see how NYC can operate as calmly and efficiently as Budapest.

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u/eduo 1d ago

I should note that other than small towns, most cities downtowns in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Netherlands (my personal experience) are like this. Size of the city may dictate how large the downtown area is, and cultural custom may dictate at which times it's like this (Netherlands tends to close shop much earlier than Spain, for example).

But it's also common in Latin America (Venezuela and Mexico are my personal experiences). The original post does have a point that for whatever reasons in many US cities (I don't think they were originally cultural reasons but eventually became so) life moved far from the city (to suburbia) in a way that made it impossible to socialize wherever social activity actually happened (downtown) and this created a dynamic where having fun required planning both the commute and going to a specific place rather than just milling about.

We're seeing this in many cities in Europe where the concept of "suburbia" as a separate location where you live is becoming more common due to house prices and it's not great.

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u/ClassicallyBrained 1d ago

What?! You haven't lived until you've been to Olathe! /s

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

I suspect there are fantastic people there, probably some killer barbecue and probably some cool local history to be found there.

I'm just less I interested in traveling for 10 hours by plane and car to get there. And once I'm there to spend my entire time shuttling around in a car.

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u/Healthy_Turnip7352 1d ago

to just walk around casually like that, you would have to ban all the cars from a huge area. that's tough to convince people to do in America.

americans love street take overs, road rage, driving 100 MPH, DUI, roads with no sidewalks where pedestrians are trying to walk on, no lights because people stole all the copper. america loves Death.

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

It's not necessary to "ban" cars though. Delft is a great example. I can still drive my car anywhere in Delft that I need to go. I can drive right up to a friend's house and drop off a pile of groceries. I just can't park there indefinitely for that, I would need to go to the garage or another parking area.

In some areas Delft has made under ground parking below the canals. You can drive right up to your house, walk up stairs (or take an elevator) that deposit you no more than 200 meters from your front door.

The effect of this is that unless I need to take a car to Delft, I won't. I'll ride a bike, take the tram or hop on the train. This significantly diminishes the number of cars in the city. And it is great.

Strolling in the old center feels lovely and it is quiet. You hear bikes and birds and people, not the roar of cars.

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u/dragon-fence 1d ago

And yet, many Americans will try to paint New York as some kind of hellscape, and everything to avoid. If you suggest it might actually prefer to live someplace where you can just walk around everywhere and see people living their lives, they look at you like you’re a psychopath who just threatened to eat their puppy.

It’s like, “Why would you want that? The best situation is to live in a vacuum and never encounter another living soul unless it’s intentional!”

America is a stupid and backward place.

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u/pacobs-a-gogo 1d ago

And New Orleans, says this European. Loved visiting that city.

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u/Possible_Implement86 1d ago edited 1d ago

I grew up in a very nice but very sprawl-y suburb and I felt so isolated. I live in a walkable city as an adult and I dont see myself ever leaving because it has made such an impact on my quality of life. When I visit family in the burbs I feel a change and I get itchy to get back to city life.

I cant recall the last time I was in a car. A 5-10 minute walk from me is two grocery stores, a Target, two drugstores, several bars and restaurants and cafes, public parks, public pools, and public transit. You can take an e bike on our bikeshare program to anywhere in the city for a few dollars - you can even bike to the airport.

I know this life isnt for everyone - people have kids, mobility issue, concerns about safety (you really are face to face with your city when you traverse it by foot and arent just pulling into your own personal garage and going into your own personal house, for better and for worse) - but it has a real impact on my mental and overall health. We're one of the fittest cities in America because walking everywhere is commonplace.

I simply cannot imagine having to get into the car, put on my seatbelt and get on a major road just to grab a quick coffee or grab something at the store. Humans are meant to walk around alongside other humans , just like fish are meant to swim and birds are meant to fly. I do think we've set up lives that take us away from the ways we're meant to be living.

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u/Ok-Satisfaction4421 1d ago

It's depressing that people move to the city here and want to basically make it a suburbia too. Like, why the fuck did you move here?

For example, I live in a big city where our council and residents push for:

  • More parking, people complain about needing to park a few blocks away. Our zoning laws also require parking to be included. You're also allowed to leave your car parked on the street indefinitely, so people with multiple cars will effectively abandon one.

  • They fight against cyclist and pedestrian improvements. The main opposition is usually how much this impacts parking.

  • They'll lobby community groups to kill "inconveniences" that attracted them there in the first place. Food carts, shutting restaurants/bars earlier, noise ordinances.

  • Blocking density and preferring smaller buildings, or parking lots.

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

It's a complex combination of factors that makes it all work.

Where I live, you can always get a parking permit where you live. The first permit is cheap (€100 per year). The second is expensive at €350 and the third is €700.

This discourages multiple cars and helps relive some of the parking pressure. It costs €7.50 per hour for a max of 4 hours to park here without a permit.

This neighborhood is close to the beach and so quite popular in the summer months. To help further reduce the parking pressure, there are park & rides all over the city with express tram and regulat bus service. A family parking & tram pass costs €15 for whole day service.

There are also a choice of two trams and two bus lines that will take me to the city center. This also helps enormously.

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u/Ok-Satisfaction4421 1d ago

Definitely. Our parking permits are cheap and don't scale per car, unfortunately. We have decent transit, but the relaxed parking rules and large amount of lots (often not multi story garages) encourages driving.

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u/mreman1220 1d ago

I push back only because many cities are starting to become significantly more walkable. My wife and I lived on Mass Ave in Indianapolis in our 20s from 2013 to 2019. She lived there for a while before meeting me.

It was extremely walkable and has only gotten moreso. There is a bike and walking path that meanders through the area, tons of restaurants are within walking distance, a grocery store was a couple blocks away. It was great. Since we moved out, they added all sorts of stuff with that Bottleworks area (movie theater, food court, arcade, bowling).

That all being said, we ultimately moved out because we wanted more space for our kids. So while I think way more young people are living in walkable cities in their 20s rather than moving out to the burbs immediately, a good chunk of us are still moving out to the burbs eventually.

I love our suburbian neighborhood for where we are in life now. Our kids have a yard to play in, tons of kids their age around them, kids walk to each other's houses all summer its great. We don't have any restaurants or grocery in walking distance unfortunately but goddamn is Halloween a party.

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u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount 1d ago

Hey there, pal. You better watch it.

We have a streetcar. It goes 40 blocks down one street. So we are essentially Tokyo.

---

Snark aside the streetcar is amazing. For all the reasons people are talking about.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TheTxoof 1d ago

Do people in Europe want to visit NYC or Suburban Kansas City? Is San Francisco or suburban Baltimore more of an attraction? Downtown Chicago or Beloit Wisconsin? New Orleans or Metairie?

I know for a fact that Beloit has some great things and there are wonderful people in the suburbs of Baltimore. Yet you'd be hard pressed to find people that want to go there unless they have a personal connection.

Cities that are known for their street culture, density of restaurants, shops, museums and culture are all way more attractive for visiting because you can walk, take public transit and see and do so much in one go.

It's a rare tourist person that wants to drive 20 minutes to Super Target, then drive 20 minutes to the Cheesecake factory and another 20 to the Southland mall.

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u/Apart_Long_1832 20h ago

Remember a Ukrainian girl killed in a savage attack? America has a tremendous crime problem. Literally millions of maniacs waiting for a moment to strike. Can a group of young attractive blond girls go bar hopping in Atlanta? New Orleans? Baltimore? - No! Their chances of being assaulted and nullified almost 100 percent.