It is *so much easier* with my two-year-old when we go somewhere that is a convenient transit trip instead of having to go in the car and has been her whole life. Of course, I was already a committed urbanist long before she was born but having a child did not change my beliefs the way many people insisted it would.
I had a chance to live in a small city in Italy for half a year when I was in college. I don’t think that very many Americans could even imagine what that daily life was like, and I feel pretty confident that if they were able to experience it, more than one and five would prefer it.
Even among the well-traveled creative class, there are many who think of Paris (and other cities that are walkable) like they think about Disneyland: it's a great place to visit, but they cannot imagine how to live a normal life with responsibilities in such a place. And these are some people who have traveled and loved these cities. We do have a car culture: it was built through car dependence, and now the car culture keeps car dependence entrenched.
I was looking at a real estate listing on Redfin yesterday and was reminded that they always include a score for Walkability (in fact the low score on that listing was what made me decide to close the browser tab and forget about it). Looking again, it has scores for transit and bikeability too. So the people who are most interested in selling you property definitely seem to think there is a market for a car-free life.
But what about people who don’t own cars who desperately want a car? What about equitable car ownership for all?? Sounds like you aren’t considering their needs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(For the record I am car free and very happy about it)
Increased Traffic, high performance vehicles, poorly designed “Legacy Highway” type Suburban Arterials running through Communities (with ZERO “pedestrian safe”characteristics where pedestrians are frequenting), and driver tendencies to go as fast as they can everywhere are all ABSOLUTELY stifling the Southwestern Chicago Suburban landscape. It is unsafe for me to walk to the Metra Station across from my house (500ft away) thanks to the presence of Legacy Hwy IL-7. And kids cross here for area Trails and a Park w/in easy reach on foot. People here WANT to walk around (and do)…but doing so is grossly disadvantaged thanks to the outdated prioritization of vehicles, even at an intersection right across from a Commuter Rail Station.
I’ve been working w the Village etc, but yeah, “Government Agency” (Fed, State,Local) are all remiss considering the levels of “OSHA” workplace safety violations here 🤣🥲(lack of a non hazardous environment). A lot of catching up (to a REAL modern standard) to do!
Palos Park in Chicago SW Suburbs, "Legacy Hwy" Arterial misaligned intersection 500ft away from (and an access route for) the local Metra Regional Rail Station:
I enjoy and respect your work, but I think this is too credulous about the survey results.
I suspect social desirability bias played a modest role in painting such a rosy picture, but the real problem is that the questions don't try to ascertain how much people would be willing to give up in order to live car-free. It's like surveys that show majorities would like the government to provide health care, without asking whether they want to pay more taxes.
My mental model of positive respondents is that most imagine living in a car free-environment ... Except when they really need it, which is a flexible standard. Additionally, I'd bet when the average respondent says "yes", she imagines herself living in the equivalent of a 2000 sq. ft. penthouse on the Upper West Side or Pacific Heights circa 1990, not a 450 sq. ft. garden apartment in Washington Heights. (This is the opposite of a problem you identified, in this case anchoring on a particular reference point.)
We probably aren't that far apart: I agree that urbanist preferences are underserved in the US, and there's an obvious market for walkable cities. I support all the recommendations by the survey's authors to serve that market and find its limits:
> embracing zoning reform, investing in alternative transportation infrastructure, lowering parking requirements for development, and encouraging mixed land uses, including in residential neighborhoods.
But I think it's still fairly niche. Too many urbanists don't recognize how incredible cars are, sometimes for narrow demographic factors (I don't mean to imply all urbanists are rich, healthy, and childless, but those all undermine the case for cars), but also for the things cars enable. A partial list of underrated automobile advantages follows. They:
• Run on your schedule.
• Allow you to haul more than any other modes of transportation. Not just more, but also more cumbersome things. I cannot bicycle my amplifier to an ad-hoc show at a local block party.
• Collapse space, allowing you to live near work and the beach/mountains/trails/relatives/friends/ultimate frisbee league/your band's rehearsal space/etc./etc. This cuts in multiple directions, working for other people at the same time, putting you in reach of a critical mass of people that share your interests and satisfy your needs.
• Are weather-independent. I salute the hardy souls that commute via bicycle in New England, but there's no timeline where a significant portion of the population follows their lead.
• Allow pets.
Healthy respect for this list (and others) would lead to better-calibrated policy goals.
City layout makes a big difference of course—and how people drive. Only about two years ago we lived less than a mile from the post office, the library, and a great park—and decent sidewalks to get there. We had a lot of people move down to Florida during COVID and the roads felt busier and it makes one feel very exposed to feel that rush of air as someone drives past when you have an erratic two-year-old—especially when the driver takes turns too quickly because people don’t expect to see pedestrians. I much preferred walking to driving because it took out the friction of buckling and unbuckling. I’ve also wondered whether someone walking to actually get somewhere indicates a class difference and that affects how pedestrians are perceived.
The return to more urban living, especially those wonderful but now blighted Streetcar suburbs, would be accelerating were it not for crime, safety and school issues. Until those are effectively tackled people in large numbers aren’t going to make the move. And those who control most of our major, and even secondary metros, have an agenda that isn’t going to make it possible.
It is *so much easier* with my two-year-old when we go somewhere that is a convenient transit trip instead of having to go in the car and has been her whole life. Of course, I was already a committed urbanist long before she was born but having a child did not change my beliefs the way many people insisted it would.
I had a chance to live in a small city in Italy for half a year when I was in college. I don’t think that very many Americans could even imagine what that daily life was like, and I feel pretty confident that if they were able to experience it, more than one and five would prefer it.
Even among the well-traveled creative class, there are many who think of Paris (and other cities that are walkable) like they think about Disneyland: it's a great place to visit, but they cannot imagine how to live a normal life with responsibilities in such a place. And these are some people who have traveled and loved these cities. We do have a car culture: it was built through car dependence, and now the car culture keeps car dependence entrenched.
I was looking at a real estate listing on Redfin yesterday and was reminded that they always include a score for Walkability (in fact the low score on that listing was what made me decide to close the browser tab and forget about it). Looking again, it has scores for transit and bikeability too. So the people who are most interested in selling you property definitely seem to think there is a market for a car-free life.
This is a great point
But what about people who don’t own cars who desperately want a car? What about equitable car ownership for all?? Sounds like you aren’t considering their needs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(For the record I am car free and very happy about it)
Increased Traffic, high performance vehicles, poorly designed “Legacy Highway” type Suburban Arterials running through Communities (with ZERO “pedestrian safe”characteristics where pedestrians are frequenting), and driver tendencies to go as fast as they can everywhere are all ABSOLUTELY stifling the Southwestern Chicago Suburban landscape. It is unsafe for me to walk to the Metra Station across from my house (500ft away) thanks to the presence of Legacy Hwy IL-7. And kids cross here for area Trails and a Park w/in easy reach on foot. People here WANT to walk around (and do)…but doing so is grossly disadvantaged thanks to the outdated prioritization of vehicles, even at an intersection right across from a Commuter Rail Station.
I’ve been working w the Village etc, but yeah, “Government Agency” (Fed, State,Local) are all remiss considering the levels of “OSHA” workplace safety violations here 🤣🥲(lack of a non hazardous environment). A lot of catching up (to a REAL modern standard) to do!
Palos Park in Chicago SW Suburbs, "Legacy Hwy" Arterial misaligned intersection 500ft away from (and an access route for) the local Metra Regional Rail Station:
Residential-SW-Hwy/Timber Ln/121st Misaligned Intersection
Vehicle Crash Summary Illustrating Public Safety Hazards
For Area Residents and Drivers,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S0v8jnJ_pqAwd-JQyqIQz2OGaqXXQFiG/view?usp=sharing
Palos Park / Metra SWS Station / Regional Trails Hub
Residential SW Hwy / Timber Ln / 121st St.
Misaligned Intersection Crossover Point
Illustration of the Need for:
Reduction of the Speed Limit and Reconfiguration of the Misaligned Intersection and Residential Section of SW Hwy Due To Traffic Hazards Present
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11KXIIzfHFQ_QEjQ1Q0YWH4PZw3zjW3dx/view?usp=sharing
There is no way to live without a car in most of the U.S.
That's why I find the numbers surprising!
I am jaded about these results because I have burned myself a few times by repeating positive polling results for walkable urbanism. The Houston Area Survey has been generating something similar for many years, meanwhile driving mode shares are holding steady. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/local/2023/05/16/451837/kinder-survey-houstonians-show-an-increased-desire-for-walkable-neighborhoods-for-the-first-time-in-15-years/
On the other hand, I have not looked at these surveys closely.
I enjoy and respect your work, but I think this is too credulous about the survey results.
I suspect social desirability bias played a modest role in painting such a rosy picture, but the real problem is that the questions don't try to ascertain how much people would be willing to give up in order to live car-free. It's like surveys that show majorities would like the government to provide health care, without asking whether they want to pay more taxes.
My mental model of positive respondents is that most imagine living in a car free-environment ... Except when they really need it, which is a flexible standard. Additionally, I'd bet when the average respondent says "yes", she imagines herself living in the equivalent of a 2000 sq. ft. penthouse on the Upper West Side or Pacific Heights circa 1990, not a 450 sq. ft. garden apartment in Washington Heights. (This is the opposite of a problem you identified, in this case anchoring on a particular reference point.)
We probably aren't that far apart: I agree that urbanist preferences are underserved in the US, and there's an obvious market for walkable cities. I support all the recommendations by the survey's authors to serve that market and find its limits:
> embracing zoning reform, investing in alternative transportation infrastructure, lowering parking requirements for development, and encouraging mixed land uses, including in residential neighborhoods.
But I think it's still fairly niche. Too many urbanists don't recognize how incredible cars are, sometimes for narrow demographic factors (I don't mean to imply all urbanists are rich, healthy, and childless, but those all undermine the case for cars), but also for the things cars enable. A partial list of underrated automobile advantages follows. They:
• Run on your schedule.
• Allow you to haul more than any other modes of transportation. Not just more, but also more cumbersome things. I cannot bicycle my amplifier to an ad-hoc show at a local block party.
• Collapse space, allowing you to live near work and the beach/mountains/trails/relatives/friends/ultimate frisbee league/your band's rehearsal space/etc./etc. This cuts in multiple directions, working for other people at the same time, putting you in reach of a critical mass of people that share your interests and satisfy your needs.
• Are weather-independent. I salute the hardy souls that commute via bicycle in New England, but there's no timeline where a significant portion of the population follows their lead.
• Allow pets.
Healthy respect for this list (and others) would lead to better-calibrated policy goals.
City layout makes a big difference of course—and how people drive. Only about two years ago we lived less than a mile from the post office, the library, and a great park—and decent sidewalks to get there. We had a lot of people move down to Florida during COVID and the roads felt busier and it makes one feel very exposed to feel that rush of air as someone drives past when you have an erratic two-year-old—especially when the driver takes turns too quickly because people don’t expect to see pedestrians. I much preferred walking to driving because it took out the friction of buckling and unbuckling. I’ve also wondered whether someone walking to actually get somewhere indicates a class difference and that affects how pedestrians are perceived.
The return to more urban living, especially those wonderful but now blighted Streetcar suburbs, would be accelerating were it not for crime, safety and school issues. Until those are effectively tackled people in large numbers aren’t going to make the move. And those who control most of our major, and even secondary metros, have an agenda that isn’t going to make it possible.