• gregorum@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    105
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    That’s not really true here though. This is in the middle of an urban area, not in some big open empty space that’s unoccupied, like Montana, or North Dakota. This is in the middle of Houston, Texas, a very populous city.

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      10 months ago

      Calling anywhere in Greater Houston “the middle of an urban area” is just incorrect. It’s the 4th most populated city in the US and the 150th most densely populated. There are a lot of people in Houston but also just a fucking Tom of Houston around. But, as is the norm in this magazine, you are all free to ignore facts and data so you can raise a furor in your tiny anti-car cult.

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Calling anywhere in Greater Houston “the middle of an urban area” is just incorrect.

        It’s the 4th most populated city in the US

        lmao

        • TipRing@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Houston is so big because the city has absorbed all the communities around it. It’s incredibly sprawled so the density is much lower than cities of comparable population. This creates all sorts of other issues, like the problem of paving over hundreds of square miles of wetland.

      • Gabu@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        Did you really decide that posting that was a good idea? Did you seriously think about it at all before writing it?

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            I concur bro. These bullshitters are high on their own farts and apparently can’t see the truth that they are never going to change the vast landscape of America into their imaginary Soviet-style shithole idea of a “utopia” where people don’t drive and live in tiny boxes in human hives.

            • paaviloinen@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              Soviet Union was bad for multiple reasons but in major cities the housing was not really any worse than anywhere else in the world. I guess you just enjoy spending 3 hours a day in your car.

              • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                I don’t commute to work often, but when I do it’s only about a 20 minute drive in light traffic. I certainly wouldn’t spend 3 hours a day in a car to commute to work when there are plenty of jobs within that 20 minute commute from my house.

                • paaviloinen@sopuli.xyz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  The point was that in total you probably spend more time in your car than any sane average European would, because you lack options. And because you lack options it’s a hellscape for anyone who can’t drive a car. The point wasn’t your commute, because your commute probably doesn’t represent the median. Also good for you. My commute is also irrelevant, but it’s five minutes walk to a train, ten minutes by train and five minutes walk from the train to the office, all that in an environment where I don’t fear for my life, the noise level permits me to whisper to other people without them having difficulties hearing me.

                  • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    10 months ago

                    Wow you really assume a lot about people huh? Assuming that I spend so much time in my car, when I probably drive about 1 hour per week on average. “You lack options” he says - LOL! Yet I can get in my car and drive anywhere I want at any time. I also have the option of a motorcycle that I could drive anywhere, including off-road where cars can’t go. If I didn’t want to drive those I could ride my bike or skateboard. But I don’t HAVE to drive anywhere if I don’t want to. If I wanted to be lazy I could have anything I want delivered to my house. But yeah go on about lack of options haha.

                    It’s not a “hellscape” or dangerous here at all. I look out my windows and see a beautiful forest around my house. There have been only 3 murders in 25 years in my town. Children play in the yard unsupervised, people leave their doors unlocked, and everyone but the most paranoid feels safe to do whatever they want around here.

                    EDIT: I forgot to address the noise level you mentioned. The noise level for my working environment is generally silence unless I want to play music. The noise level for my home is only the noises that happen inside my home, because I don’t live in a little apartment connected to the walls and floors and ceilings of other people’s homes to hear their noises.

          • Gabu@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            Cool story. Come back when your brain has developed past the age of 2, we’ll gladly discuss then.

    • schmidtster@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      49
      ·
      10 months ago

      And? If they need space they expand elsewhere. If this interchange was at the edge of town, middle of town, north or south. The town is still the same size. America is large, lots of “empty” space.

      • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        56
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        And that’s how you get sprawling cities that are completely untraversable on foot, bike or bus. Urban planning is important, even when space is abundant

      • gregorum@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        that’s not how urban development works, like, at all, lol.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Cities should avoid becoming nightmare, sprawling hellscapes. Dense cities with multi-use buildings, public transit, and walkable infrastructure are where its at.

        • schmidtster@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          25
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Dense, ugly cities, with no character, where people trip over each other isn’t the solution.

          Those can be a part of the larger city, why can’t everyone have what they want instead of just a small portion of people who only think of themselves?

          Its great to know this community is open to discussion instead of just perpetuating the same tropes and downvoting people!

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Dense and ugly are not synonyms, same with lacking character. If you go to sprawling suburbia, you’ll find that there’s exactly no character, you can drive for 30 minutes and think you went in a circle.

            Do you genuinely believe people want sprawling hellscapes where they have to sit in traffic forever to get to the nearest Walmart, destroying the environment and further atmozing individuals and alienating themselves, or do you think it makes more sense to address population needs, environmental needs, and efficiency via smarter urban planning that isn’t so car-centric?

            Car-centric infrastructure takes up for more space and far more time is spent on commuting than well-planned urban infrastructure with public transit, and costs the environment far more, and is far more economically expensive. It’s disastrous and should be stopped entirely.

            • schmidtster@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              24
              ·
              10 months ago

              Ugly and character are both subjective, your opinion isn’t the correct one. Nor is someone’s else’s, but one side is vocal while the other trudges along allowing the other to do and get what they need and want.

              Some people do, yeah. Do you seriously think people don’t want that? People literally drive trucks as a career lmfao, yeah lots of people love it, in fact, they are the majority and you are the vocal minority. Get a grip on reality lmfao.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                18
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                10 months ago

                No.

                People absolutely loath getting stuck in traffic, and the existence of truckers does not mean that the majority of people love traffic and wasted space, fighting over parking, wasting tons of money, and destroying the environment.

                You implied that dense requires ugliness and lacking character, which is the exact opposite of reality. Car-centric infrastructure is incredibly ugly and lacks any and all character, it’s just roads and parking garages, traffic, and pollution.

                • schmidtster@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  19
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  No some people don’t mind being stuck in traffic. If it makes your drive 4x longer because of bad design that’s different. At the worst in my large city it’s 50% longer to get across the city unless there’s an accident. That 20 minutes to a whopping 30 minutes to travel the almost 40km from north to south.

                  Its ugly and lacks character because its dense, I’m sorry you can’t understand other peoples opinions and only yours apparently is valid.

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    12
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    Name one person that either enjoys or doesn’t mind being stuck in traffic. Your example of the worst case scenario being an accident is a problem that is caused by car-centric infrastructure.

                    Density is not ugly nor does it lack character, that’s an absurd statement. Ugly things can be dense, but to claim that Density itself is ugly is absurd.

              • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                ·
                edit-2
                10 months ago

                https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?si=4Dhz8B-6AYK677PO

                You may want to look at the economic downsides to sprawl. If you really want sprawl, then you’re gonna have to pay for it, cause we’re sick of paying for your roads, and the people who live in the cities pay for everyone else’s roads, and we want walkable/bikeable cities with cars being excluded to a few parking structures on the edge of the city.

          • Gabu@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            You’re so american it’s sad. American cities are some of the ugliest in the entire world, whereas dense cities like what you’d find in most of Europe or Japan are absolutely beautiful and brimming with character.

        • paaviloinen@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          …and even though it’s next to industrial zone, this is what downtown Houston actually looks like on a map. Numerous square miles of space just for “letting traffic through”. The bill on the upkeep of this kind of wasteful infrastructure must be much more than what it costs to provide housing for all the homeless people in the county!