• GaryLeChat
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    11 months ago

    I can only really speak from a Canadian perspective and I think it’s important to focus on your local area. I’ve seen in my city and all of the other major cities (I’ve been luck enough to travel to here) that along with urbanism, a heavier emphasis on public transit and active transportation, is present.

    While I can only speak to the large cities, a lot of the smaller towns I’ve been to are still somewhat closely knit. It’s the suburbs that are weird and hostile to the above ideas. Not that it’s all that surprising given the predominant political views of there but that’s a long topic that others have made YouTube videos about.

    To bring it back around, similar to what some other comrades have said in this thread, local/municipal politics is where you’re most likely to get some change done.

    NJB has an interesting view and I can see where he’s coming from as his story and mine aren’t too dissimilar (except the city that I moved to is till within Canada). I don’t agree on the nihilism that he exhibits around Canadian cities as my takeaway is he is still living within fixed boundaries of a political mindset. It’s important to realize that many urban residents support making their city more people oriented but just haven’t had the push to become more politically engaged.

    For anyone interested in Canadian urbanism/active transportation/public transit, I can recommend a few channels:

    They also have videos about cities outside of Canada but are nonetheless Canadian creators so they have a bit more of a focus on their home cities.

    • SpaceDogs
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      11 months ago

      I’m Canadian too and looking back at what my city’s public transport used to look like is incredibly disheartening. We used to have streetcars going to ever nook and cranny of the city but it was all torn up to make room for the automobile. It’s only recently that the LRT has been getting an upgrade to include travel to every corner rather than just north and south, its also taking forever to complete because they stupidly chose a private company to build the rails rather than the public sector (P3 model, I believe) and it wont be rideable till 2024-2025 as it keeps getting delayed.

      Also, thank you for the recommendations! Im surprised I haven’t seen their channels before.