LogFAQs > #967591972

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

I am allowed to point out a problem (where I see one) without being immediately required to offer a solution for said problem.

Yes, but when you are pointing out a problem and implying what the actual root of the problem is (which is 100% what you're doing), it helps to actually have some idea of what you're actually talking about.



adjl posted...

As much as this is an easy excuse to fall back on, many of the European cities with functional transit and active transport infrastructure have very comparable population densities to many North American cities.

Which is sort of the point. The solutions might work in cities, but there's a hell of a lot of the US that isn't city. Certainly more so than is the case in Europe. So unless you intend to force everyone into the US into metropolitan areas at gunpoint, those sorts of solutions will always be less effective here than elsewhere.

Part of the problem is that US infrastructure (and multiple facets of our society and culture) grew up at the same time cars did, so cars are so integrated into our infrastructure at a deep level that you'd basically have to social engineer and deconstruct dozens of different and seemingly unrelated aspects of our lifestyle to undo it. Not just streets or transport or delivery, but things like the literal concept of dating and our shopping preferences.

Ever-increasing adoption of cell phones is actually paving the way towards chipping away at 100 years of automotive symbiosis, but it's a process that's going to take decades, if it ever really goes full term.

There's a really good book that addresses a lot of this, and points out just how strongly cars have influenced most of the 20th and early 21st century (especially in the US):

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Motion-Wheel-Comes/dp/1635573610