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Spaniard here. As a child, I thought american suburbs weren't real, that they were simply locations to set disney channel shows and movies in. Wide, empty, samey, because they were all filmed in one or two sets that were reused for all movies and shows. The fear I got when I finally understood those were real places and people lived in them hasn't evaporated since.
why should suburb be residential only? it makes no sense, normal development of a place doesn´t work like that, you have small shops and reataurants and occasional businesses
Exclusive zoning is a stupid American idea of building cities. Mixed zoning has so many advantages over exclusive zoning, like having a bakery, restaurant, post office or retail store in the ground floor of a nearly residential building.
@@T0ghar - We're talking *suburbs* not an inner city. American suburbs are so much nicer. Big houses, big lawns, big back yards, often pools. The whole point of suburbs is not to have a bunch of retail all over the place. It's a given that you're going to have a car (usually more than one).
@@SilvanaDil in Europe, a suburb is every surrounding town around the big cities. that can be everything from a 200 people village to a 40.000 people town.
@@xalau5270 - There's no point to have to walk (sometimes in rain, etc.) to a bunch of different places to get your groceries, etc., then lug them home.
as a french currently in vacation in canada, i’m deeply shocked to see the empty suburbs. like it’s just houses and nothing else??? no small shop, no restaurant, nothing! that’s so weird to me
Yep, I have seen ONE ROAD villages (not even cose to a sufficient population density to aspire to stroad-dom) in Europe with more commerce and tourist attractions.
The purpose of a suburb is to live quietly, away from the noise and pollution of cities. Houses are also more affordable. People have the option to live wherever they want. So, it's not like a sad/bad place to live in.
@@leenab417 i never said it was sad or bad, i said it was weird to me as a european person bc all european suburbs have stores, little shops and restaurants
Ryan: "I'm just confused on how [restaurants] are possible in a suburb." Also Ryan: "Front yards really are pretty much wasted space." Me, an european: "I think you just answered your own question there."
Also, we don't have the SPACE for their wide and empty "suburbs"... Ours just grew around a city with very limited available surface for anything, so we had to be more efficient; and thus the lots got higher population density. Which would make all those small businesses viable.
There's no country called Europe. So you're only european cause you live in a continent called Europe. Why don't you just say you're from __________________ (write your country here idiot.)
@@violetalar5387nah just get rid of some front Yards, put the houses more close to another and wups, u have space for a whole Restaurant. Then there ist the thing, that we rent more, so multilevel building are more Common. And often the ground Flor is a Restaurant, and above are flats for rent. So u could say, Slap the Restaurant/Shop under ur house and another house on top of ur house😂
Zoning is mad. When I was young and naive (25 or so) I was visiting a friend for a week who lived in an American suburb. She was really worried about planning how I would spend the one day she had to work that week, on my own without a car. I was just thinking “why is she so worried? I’ll just wander around for a bit, see what the local culture is like, maybe grab some lunch from a corner shop or sit at a café.” Just like I would in any European city. Yeah, that was not an option…
its true mate. i find it, frankly, scary how people see living in such dismal suburbia as an ideal living situation, and this is most obvious in america. @@landonbarretto4933
Sounds reasonable enough. You had all day, that's probably enough time to hike to the nearest gas station, get a candy bar and a bag of chips, and hike back. As long as you don't have to cross an interstate highway or something.
@@rascta Yeah, sounds very nice: Ride a bike for twenty minutes on a big multi-lane road until you get to a gas station with a 7-Eleven, and if you're lucky you'll find a chain restaurant on the side of a busy road. I don't think that's how @phueal imagined "seeing what the local culture is like". :D
I will blow your mind: In Portugal, residencial and commercial areas are together. There is no neighbourhood without at least a convenience store, a bakery and a caffe. That way there is a true community in each area!
In Europe the suburb is usually not built (as suburb). They existed as small towns and villages spread around the cities, and when the cities started to grow faster they eventually reached the border of those villages, connected them by public transit and they became the suburb of the city. Eventually the town was absorbed over time into the city, becoming a new district. Then the next towns became the new suburb of the cities. Just look at London, Munich, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Rome... They are all very old cities, dating back 800 to 2.500 years from their original settlements. They gradually expanded and added suburbs over time, while creating new suburbs out of outlying towns. European countries don't have space to waste (and still they waste more than enough).
About 15 years ago my town joined 2 villages, they are also planning to join another one, which is basically already part of it, even public transport goes there. So yes, in Europe there are too densely located towns and villages to need to design suburbs.
@@Adam509846sounds like what is happening in some Polish cities right now. Incorporating small villages close to bigger cities to extend control over city and make room for new building schemes (also new taxpayere)
@@Musta0011 That would be town or large village by my standards. Suburbs have to be around core city center or connected by frequent rail link or highway(freeway/autobahn). Well also that depends where you come from and how is your region structured.
In Europe, it's actually common to list the distance to public transport, school, kindergarden and shops when you list a house or flat for sale or rent. Them being reasonably close is a huge plus. And that means less than a km away, preferably only a couple 100 meters.
also: in large cities, e.g. Berlin, people might tell you where they live and then right away add the name of the nearest Tram or subway station, because that's what you are most likely to know.
And where I live ads list types of public transport and distance to bus, train, tram and the addresses and also distances to schools and if they are public or private and all the nearby places of worship.
In America, there are places that factor distance from public transit. But they’re either 10x normal prices, or half (depending on how crime ridden and dank the transit hub is).
😀 it's true. I always say my flat is between two schools, has a kindergaten at 3 minutes walk and you only have to walk 5 minutes to the medical centre. The metro line that connect us to the big city is a 5 minutes walk and I have 2 different bus stops, a supermarket, a bakery and a fruit shop in a half a minute from home. I wanted to buy a new flat and the first thing that asked for from the one I liked most was supermarket avalability (was 15 minutes away) and public transport. It was a new area and there wasn't anything yet, only blocks. I didn't like it and decided not to buy. Six years later and that area doesn't has too much on supermarket avalability and they only have one bus line and a pair of coffee shops.
I'm in the UK and to me the idea of having a residential area with no shops or other public service places nearby seems crazy, like where I live it's probably considered a suburb but we have a corner shop, a church, a community centre, a doctors surgery and pharmacy, a local fish and chips, and a primary school all with a 5-10 minute walk from my house, and there's also buses which only take about 30mins to get to the closest town centre. I couldn't imagine living in a place where you're only option is to drive everywhere even when you just need to pop to the shops for some milk ect.
@@metallboy25 That is true! My family gets most of our shopping delivered and while the local co-op is more expensive than others it's still handy when you need something quickly
Most European "suburbs" are just villages / small cities that were "swallowed up" by a big city next to them. The villages have existed for several hundred years before cars were a thing and the inhabitants were like farmers, bakers, butchers and carpenters so they had their shops close by (even in their house)
Some of the suburbs around my city (of Ann Arbor, MI) are like that too (though they are only 200 years old, not many hundreds of years). But they have town/village centers with older-style single-family neighborhoods within walking distance and newer more 'typically suburban' neighborhoods farther out (and rural houses, some original farmhouses, and some on still-working farms even farther out). Try googling 'streetview Dexter Michigan' to see what I mean. The point is that there is no one-size-fits all American suburb type--not even within the same town in a single state.
And some suburbs in Germany are build from scratch as the city grows. They have schools, kindergartens and crèches, supermarkets, restaurants and cafes, some shops and a post office as well. Your explanation of swallowed smaller towns and villages is one explanation. But our suburbs have mixed zoning by design too.
In the Netherlands we have some newly build ‘suburbs’ outside of bigger cities. Mostly because surrounding towns didn’t want to be absorbed by the big city. This is why Dutch cities stay relatively small. The build up area is much bigger but consists of multiple municipalities. That has created some weird situations. I live in a town that is glued to the city that lies to the west of us, but it’s suburb is to the east of us. Unlike US suburbs they all have various types of housing, shops, doctors and dentists offices, schools and excellent public transport into the city. The only thing that is missing are good restaurants and bars.
In France, we have a type of suburbs called "lotissement". They look like US suburbs but are more dense. However, because of the lack of local stores, restaurants, mass transports and access to any kind of services but also their high demand in energy, these are considered as mistakes and not a viable option anymore.
It depends on which type of "lotissement". Those with at most 8, 10 houses are not an issue. The issue is with the large "lotissement" built on the American model.
@@nco1970 It's still not the same as in the US. You can find big residential only areas but they're usually close enough to the center so you don't have to take your car and drive for like 30 minutes to get there. I think the main difference is the size of the cities/towns/villages. The size of a residential area in the US would be the size of a whole town with the center, the shops AND the residential area in France.
Im french too. I had a childhood friend who lived in one of those. They are the most dead and boring place I've been. There is nothing to do and everything is eerily quite
In Germany, there are no suburbs like in America. It is unimaginable that a single house takes up so much space just for some meadow that is not even a front yard. In Germany, suburbs are almost always village-like, even if there are mostly single-family houses. American suburbs seem very strange to me, so dead, lonely and cold. I get depression just from watching this video.
I know over 40% of Americans own guns, but its still strange to me that basically no one has a proper fence around their house. It would make me feel uncomfortable that everybody could just straight walk onto my property and to my front door. I haven't seen a European house without some kind of fence or wall around the entire yard
It's funny because i often see German villages and stuff quite cold. I live in France, at the border, and it seems Always a bit to wide clean and cold when i go to or pass by German villages. It's not really Bad tho because it looks really clean. But as i was a kid i thought it looked a bit like America : you had Space to plan out the city, and in my home région in alsace, it mostly seems it's historic littles villages that just grew bigger and have then sometimes strange features because of that. Hope i said clearly what i intended to 😅
@@lexywackess oh that might be unfortunately due to WWII. The Americans had some influence in re-structuring some of our cities. For Example Mannheim is very grid-like like cities in the US. You can find those historic little towns in Germany. A lot has been destroyed tho.
@@jimidando thought about it while commenting 😅 i live in Strasbourg, half of our city was built by the germans, luckily it seems most of it got kinda preserved
@@lexywackessGerman here 😃I agree. Compared to your beautiful Alsace, many German villages are definitely a bit cold and clean. But come on, there are beautiful, more "alsaceish" villages in Germany, too.
It was one of the biggest culture shocks for me when visiting friends in the US. Used to basically walk or bike everywhere, the reliance on cars was horrible. I couldn't do anything on my own! I've happily lived over 30 years in Europe without ever needing a car, and then spent a month in the US feeling like i was on house arrest. I ended up walking... even though there were no sidewalks. I'd just walk an hour to the mall. Was the only person on the street. Once i took the bus. OMG, it was like a bus from the 1940s! Didn't even have tickets! So you needed a dolar and some change to be able to get on! It was surreal. Canada was better. I mean it was still something similar close up, but they had shops that weren't very far away over the interstate or smth. You could walk 30 mins and get to a supermarket. The suburbs seemed to have a sort of mini local center. I didn't see any restaurants though. Just shops. Still a lot better than the US though.
Everything you said is dependent on location. On average, Canada is about as bad as America, but both have good and bad places. I can’t walk anywhere, but I’m a 5 minute bike ride to a grocery store, and 15 minute bike from the city center with dozens of restaurants and shops. This is in a reasonably small city (250k pop) in the US.
Hungarian here: Budapest is currently very hard to drive because of the narrow streets, lack of parking places and there is a lot of traffic, so it's much MUCH easier to walk or to take the very convinient and smart public transport system. I might be a bit bias because I can't drive but I love it! I get so much anxiety from watching these American suburbs. Even in a small town we have at least a csárda (restaurant like thingy), pub and store or two. These residential areas look like some sort of post apocalyptic wastelands. I don't want to trash them because I guess I can see why is it nice to have a "clean" place but it upsets me so deeply. Reminds me of liminal spaces
Other Hungarian here and although I don't live in Budapest I can confirm. It's often mentioned in the media since it's a part of the political debates between the left and right wing. Btw I live in a suburb too, there's a small grocery shop and a post office around 50 meters away my home (so literally on the next corner). Right next to it there are huge containers, that's where we take the recycling. And if I walked a hundred meters in the opposite direction I could find a flower shop as well. Not to mention the petrol station, the school, the cinema, the cafés and the restaurants that are relatively close to me.
3rd hungarian here. I live in the heart of the town. There isno such thing as residential area only or commercial area. I walk out to the street,look left and see a pizza place, coffee shop, wellness, town hall, bar, museum. And that is only in my 50 meters radius.😂
there is something called "Wohngebiet", typically an area that was declared "Neubaugebiet" at some point in time. in those places you will have a structure more akin to the US suburbs.
I presume, it´s confusing to think it a different way. ... In european cities, the ground floor of a house maybe used for shops, while the upper floors maybe used for offices or residents. ... So it´s a very common thing for germans to simply walk down the stairways, turn right, do a few steps and be in front of the nearest bakery. (At least withi cities.)
When we learned the word "suburb" in school, I imagined a neighborhood or Wohngebiet like the one where we lived, single houses, detached houses, and Reihenhäuser all next to each other, and even 4 and 5 story Mehrfamilienhäuser two streets down. We had a bakery and a butcher's about 150 m away, and the elementary school was maybe 300 m away. It was a neighborhood outside the city center like those suburbs, but seemingly closer and way better reachable. When I heard about zoning rules in America, I couldn't believe that those neighborhoods didn't even have a bakery in walking distance. 😮
@FaceFish9 Really , as a school kid in Finland , i walked from home first across a small forest , then busy road , over the styrofoam factory area , then over the railroad and plastic film factory area , to school only 100 m from that factory , there was apartment houses 20 m from that factory , Wartsilä was middle of town , just as was tobacco factory and Snellman meat processing , its only in 1990s when businesses started to move more outside the city . KWH plastic film factory its still there , they have also demolished those apartment houses right next to it , cheaper than to renovate and school is closed , it would be 100 years old .
In the UK most suburban areas have shops, pubs, regular bus/train services into the town centre. They may have small business/industrial premises. Suburbs are not residential only areas, though some new ones may seem that way, these are quite small. New suburbs now have to include certain facilities, such as shops, schools etc to reduce the need to travel into the centre for essential goods etc. Many suburbs of large cities are old villages swallowed up by city expansion, that retain elements from their past, so that is what expected in newer planned suburbs.
The thing is zoning. European suburbs are almost always mixte. With business, markets, cafés, food shops etc... Very few purely housing buildings. Even when building condos the first floor is often designed to house shops. Whereas american suburbs are often purely residential. Meaning no businesses, no shops,no markets. Those are on specific zoning (the mall) and you ll need a car to go that far.
Watching this as a non-American, I can’t help but feel intense anxiety when I look at the images of the US suburbs. And the biggest reason why is the lack of public transport. I’ve lived in cities my whole life, and I’ve always had plenty of public transport options available. That has always given me a strong sense of security: if I need to get to a hospital, or a drug store, or get to a friend or a family member in an emergency, there are trams and trains and busses I can use. If I go on a blind date, and the person turns out to be a frightening creep, I can get TFO even if I’ve been drinking. And no-one can limit my movements by taking my car keys, or by an empty tank, or by being dependent on someone else’s car or their ability to drive me. I can’t think of a situation more suffocating than having limited ability to go anywhere or do anything without a car, and it sounds like a ripe situation for an abusive person to exploit.
So you think public transport is some sort of "liberating thing"? Really? It sounds like the typical liberal brain-washing a European gets from their society. Sacrificing FREEDOM and SELF-RESPONSIBLITY for SAFETY.
A car would get you to the hospital far faster than any of those things. Sorry you are afraid to drive. Imagine bleeding out and having to hobble to the nearest bus/tram stop and then sitting around waiting for the thing to actually show up, THEN having to do however many transfers. LOL
Limited ability IS all the things you mentioned. A car can get you everywhere the road goes. Also, this video is a lie. There isn't a tram on every road in Europe.
@@JohnDoe-lo1uf On the other hand, it usually doesn't cost anything extra to call an ambulance/emergency doctor in Europe. Yes, there are rural areas where public transport runs 2-3 times a day, but often these towns are close enough to the nearest town with a doctor, bank and shops that you can still reach them by bike or on foot. In some regions there is even a mobile bank service; shopping service; Medical practice*, which make the rounds between the small towns. *converted trucks that include the appropriate equipment.
@@JohnDoe-lo1uf If I was injured like that, I WOULD CALL AN AMBULANCE. And btw, AMBULANCES ARE FREE IN EUROPE, so my first thought wouldn’t be something like ”Oh no! I can’t afford the hundreds/thousands it takes to ride an ambulance, so I’ll try to drive myself to the hospital, thus risking my own life and everyone else’s on the road if I lose consciousness behind the wheel.” And even if I did try and take the bus, you can bet the other people riding it would call the ambulance for me. Also, the video NEVER SAID there are tram tracks on EVERY street! It just happened that this one street they used as an example had tram tracks, and it was a difference to American suburbs that warranted mentioning.
In Sweden we have lots of suburbs kind of reminding you of the Ameican ones, but they’re different in that they have lots of green spaces, paths for walking and biking, at least one supermarket within a couple of kilometers, soccer fields, playgrounds and so on. Also the houses are mostly a mix between one-family houses and apartmentbuildings.
My grandma lives in 1 and this is completely True and it is basicly a 30 minute walk to the closest train station on safe only walking paths but then we also have a bus stop served every 30 minutes
@@Musta0011 i think everyone is comparing suburbs the wrong way, because on google maps i see areas in uk and Sweden the same way as the u.s. just not transportation because no one can afford a tax raise in cities ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P-bmPskZNAg.html unless you can pay 10,000 in property tax some people went up by $800 there was a 15% increase in certain suburbs this year, if it keeps this up the suburbs is going to be dead and closed up with no one living there
@@knightwolf3511 There is def the same Suburbs in Sweden as there is in US. BUT, the difference is that there is busses, train stops and stuff everywhere. We have 5 schools just in my small town of 20 000 people. Stores on every side of the town. Parks, playgrounds and everything you need is closeby.
I grew up in Polish suburbs. Grocery stores and local pizza place just around the corner, 10 minute walk to my school through a very safe, low traffic area, lots of playgrounds around and kids to play with and 15 minutes walk to the actual forest where you could find a roe deer lurking around. Wouldn't change it for anything. American suburbs look bleak and lonely.
My parents in lithuania moved out to live in a kind of suburb that I guess are american though still they do have potential of becoming more dense as these land parcels are smaller than typical american. The neighborhood came to being as it is as USSR gifted small land parcels to people as recreational gardening space. Nobody expected anyone would build homes there as nobody had money to do so - but as soon as USSR collapsed and people started earning money - people started building houses in these plots of land. Problem with these places is that they came to be through kind of greyish legal ways and if you built a house 20 years ago nobody is going to come to kick you out but economic activity is not yet always allowed. Still though 5min away there is bus stop and in 1hr one can get to city center thus I don't need car to visit them. And over time I think area has potential to develop. Similar area just 10min drive away closer to city already seen schools built and grocery stores opened and transform. It also gets more densely populated because some land owners of these small parcels build a bigger house and then divide it into flats. In fact I'm eyeing on buying a flat in one such shared house because the neighborhood is super beautiful - you've got forests, lakes around you but also convienience like groceries, cafes and school is nearby too. And honestly I don't get it why people need their personal lawn when there is lake 5min bicycle ride away with beach, and places for sports.
@@sk-sm9sh Yes but what if people want to have a party or a barbecue, gathering at their own homes. Maybe they don’t want to go the beach, lake or park. Hence the convenience of your own lawn and backyard.
Hi Ryan, the reason he calls US suburbs a Ponzi scheme is the design means you can't support/maintain the infrastructure of a suburb based on the tax from that suburb. This is because you can't have anything but single family homes with enough space for 2 cars to park. The build of each suburb takes federal tax to create the infrastructure, but the maintenance was normally paid for from the money for creating the next suburb. Works well until you can't build enough new to pay for maintenance of the old. There is a reason some older areas, with mixed use, are expensive to buy, most of your planning rules don't allow you to build them anymore. And many people like this style of living, basic supply and demand. The US used to have trams in suburbs, its how they were built, its only the modern (1950's) version with the single family home restriction that makes it nonsense. On speed limits, they maybe the same (or similar) in US & European suburbs, but the roads in US suburbs can easily be driven at higher speeds and I'm guessing they are, less so in Europe, the street design imposes a speed limit.
It all depends on how much taxes your county collects. Some have an abundance of wealth and some don't. Calling it a Ponzi scheme is ignorant and so is the guy narrating the video. Lots of inaccuracies in the video;.
@@dustinjackson3318 Think calling it (partially) subsidized by either new developments and/or the city center is a fairer assessment. You could make the case that it's a Ponzi Scheme since new money comes from other sources to pay for the old, but I think that's acting in bad faith. A new homeless shelter would also get money from other sources to keep going. Subsidized I will grant.
And it aligns very well with what "Not Just Bikes" and "Strong Towns" have postulated. The Z US zoning laws restricting multi-use areas make essentially all areas except downtown an economic loss. But downtown in the USA isn't livable; it's strictly for work.
Correct. In the US, there is strict zoning. That means, in the suburbs, there are only residential buildings, and you have to go a long way to the next restaurant. In Europe, you have minor businesses in the suburbs, which means that you have restaurants nearby or small local shops around the corner, which you can reach on foot in a couple of minutes.
Suburbs function like little villages because they were basically villages. Check out your city's history and you'll realize that its individual districts were once separate villages and towns, the expanding city simply absorbed what was around. In the USA, there was no such density when the big cities were built, so the suburbs were not the result of the evolution of cities, but were designed.
Australia has the European suburbs too. Even in regional areas I've lived in. Honestly, it's wild to hear you go, "woah, public transport into the city? Cafes you walk to?" That's normal here. I've never lived anywhere that I couldn't walk to a cafe or to a shopping centre and that wasn't near public transport. Any residential areas built anything like the US ones end up being highly controversial.
Where my parents in live in Lithuania there is no cafe or grocery in walking distance for now. But it's still developing suburb area. But then that's post soviet union world. People literally only started making money that allows them to build their homes like 30 years back prior to that you only had chance of living in gov allocated flat that. Yet some of such newly developing neighborhoods already getting more dense. For instance 10min away by car towards city from my parents a similar neighborhood also used to be nothing 30 years ago but now has groceries, cafes, school, sport amenities. And because it's nice place to live it just naturally gets more dense because people want to live there so some are building larger homes that house several flats. Typically place that is as desolate as these US suburbs wouldn't really see anyone moving in and buying homes to live there because it's just doesn't look nice for living. And if place looks nice for living then it typically over time gets denser because eventually someone realizes that it's better business to build a house that houses 3 families instead of large empty lawn that nobody every uses. The only reason why people started building homes where my parents live is because under USSR this land was given out for free as small land parcels for recreational gardening and after USSR collapse people started building homes with their own made money.
Agree 100%. I've lived in a middle-inner, middle-outer, and now outer eastern suburbs in and around Melbourne. To not have shops, schools, and other services close by would be highly unusual. I would generally walk to school and was never further than walking distance to a shopping strip or large shopping centre. As for not having a cafe just around the corner, forget it! Not having these services is seen as a problem. In fact, many new development estates are being built along the American 100% residential model (I can't under$tand why they would do thi$) and the lack of services is a huge issue. I think what may have surprised Ryan about having a local restaurant probably comes down to the American definition of a restaurant and the large restaurants they have with their huge car parks. No one would want one of those next door in the suburbs. What we and many European countries call a restaurant is a much smaller affair. First, we generally differentiate between a cafe, bistro, and a restaurant. McDonalds likes to call themselves a restaurant but here they are just classed as a "take-away joint" or some other derogatory name. They are one step below the local fish and chip shop or pizza joint. A cafe is a step up where you would go and sit down for breakfast or lunch. You would be able to get a coffee and a light lunch or something a little more substantial. It would likely be just a quaint family run business built into an ordinary shop in a shopping strip or as the one next door was, just a refurbished house. A bistro is another level up. They would offer lunch or dinner, have a more substantial level of food than a cafe, so no toasted sandwiches but probably a 'roast of the day' in winter, and may have a liquor license. Many are attached to pubs. Then there's the restaurant which tends to be more of a fine dining establishment. Some are small family owned affairs, some run by renowned chefs with Michelin stars. In Australia, the American term "restaurant quality hamburger" is non-existent. No self-respecting restaurant would go so low as to serve a hamburger no matter how good the quality. A cafe or bistro would which is fine - that's their market.
I live in a suburb in the middle of the Netherlands. It's 30 mins bike to city center of Utrecht There is a trainstation that takes 10 mins to central station There is a school and daycare within walking or biking distance There is a grocery shop within short distance Hairdressers, pet food, pharmacies & shops nearby Liquor store, gas stations There are several take outs, bars and restaurants within biking distance Sports clubs nearby Work offices are usually NOT NEARBY You only live in the city centers when your young or students or go out a lot
"We don't drive our kids to school. They take the bus" 😭 Ryan, I guess the "we" means "as a society". It doesn't matter if the parents drive the kids, if a school bus does, if the nanny does, if the neighbors do a carpool... you still drive your kids to school.
In all fairness, a bus (or many) can do the job of a train or metro rail. Maybe the train/metro is more ecofriendly though. I think the problem you're addresing is another one - Perhaps the problem is that the car culture is prevalent in America, when maybe cars should be used sparsely, as a tool for specific things, not as a "given"; or that all homes look alike, and kids need diversity in their surroundings, culturaly, for their eyes, ears and senses.
@@RuiCBGLima There are 2 things here: 1. Bus can do the job and is definitely better than 2 dozens of car moving 2 people and air around. 2. The point in the video was more like: the schools are close enough to walk to them without real necessity to use transportation and the walking is safe (sidewalks, proper crossings).
@@RuiCBGLima I think, the relevant thing is, that kids in Europe learn to be responsible on their own. Walking to school alone or taking normal public transport requires them to take care of traffic. Also they could walk anywhere after school. But they are taught by their parents to take responsibility for the way there and back, not to go out to play without consulting them, etc. With parents and school busses, they are brought from home directly to school. No chance to walk in the wrong direction, no chance to stop at a playground, no chance to buy some ice cream on a small kiosk on the way. If you have a regular bus from public transport it maybe also drives kids to school, but they can drive with it as well into the city and watch a movie in the cinema. The same with sports and other events. By being able to go there themselves, children have more freedom and are more independent and responsible. Things that are important to learn as a child.
@@RuiCBGLima another point, apart from rural areas, school busses don't really exist in Europe. If the kids have to go further, they take the regular public transport.
The big difference is that residential zoning in the United states means you have a zone for residents (so for living only, meaning houses only). In the general European residential zone you have everything _you need to live_, which still includes houses but also bakeries, grocery's, cafes, etc. This goes hand in hand with having different modes of transport.
The concept of a suburb not having business and stuff is pretty much an USA thing. In the rest of the world, suburbs are a natural part of the city, and nobody wants to live far away from a bakery or pharmacy, etc. When choosing a place to live, people heavily consider what's around, like parks, restaurants, and so on. Also anyone in a suburb can start a small business, which not only makes money for themselves in a pinch, but also makes life easier for everyone around. Here in Brazil it is very common to have neighboors who have small businesses like tailors, shoemakers, small pharmacies, small convenience stores, bakeries, pubs/bars, etc.
It has to do with US zoning laws, which force a strict division between each type of district (primarily business, housing and industrial). I have not heard of another nation with the same level of restrictive zoning laws.
Interesting. Here, suburbs are on the outskirts of a city or town, and all the businesses are "in town". The European suburbs that this video shows look like many of our Downtown or Old Town districts, historical areas where commercial and residential zoning are mixed in ways that are no longer commonplace. There are exceptions, of course, like parts of New York and other older cities, but we mostly are subject to single district zoning: commercial, industrial, and residential.
We're not making driving that slow. We're making walking that fast. Here in the Netherlands, anything from a sparse cluster of houses that's barely a hamlet, to the big cities, is built like this. If there's a place where there are houses, then there are shops and businesses.
It's crazy to me that you dont consider the necessity to take the school bus the same thing as "being driven" 😂 they literally have to be driven by a vehicle specifically on the road to drive those kids. As opposed to them taking a predetermined public transport vehicle (bus/train/tram) open to everyone's use, biking or walking. The schools bus kids are still being DRIVEN to the school
One thing I started noticing of after watching this kind of videos is how engrained the car dependency is on American and Canadian people. The latest example was during last week's LTT stream, basically someone asked them why they don't have milk at their workplace, and their answer was "What do you want me to do? *drive* real quick to the grocery store?" For me a grocery store is a place you walk to, or run to if you're a kid or in a hurry, it's at a 5 minutes walking distance at most, usually only 1 or 2, so I would've used the word go, or maybe run to express the urgency, maybe even cycle, but never drive, driving would literally take longer than to just walk there.
To be fair, grocery stores are unfortunately not always in walking distance even in Europe. My grandmother lives in a 70s residential neighbourhood outside a small village in rural Bavaria. The next supermarkets are 7km and 15km away, and there's only a few buses per day. You can't do anyhting without a car there, much like in the US. There used to be two train stations near her house, but both were closed in the 80s, so now you're basically stuck there if you don't own a car
@@leDespicable Usually, even small villages with populations under a 100 still have small shops that have the essentials. Whenever I see a small village that closes their small shop, I cry internally for their dependance on cars. Before, a carton of milk was two minutes away. Now it's at least 30 minutes + the price of gas.
@@leDespicable the thing is that you still have an option with the bus, or train in some cases. The Americans are really dependent on cars if they don't live in a city with public transport. Because there is no other option usually. No buses, no trains, only cars. Here in the Czech Republic, I would say that a bus stop is in or close to every village however small. So I can imagine not needing a car at all if I wanna see other places. But in the US? Not possible.
@@leDespicable You're right, there are places where the bus goes 3 or 4 times a day because it goes to the schools in the next towns. Even my community (located between a big city and a small town) is marginalized with public transport, especially on weekends. During the rail strike, the local transport app recommended cycling to get to the small town or one of the outskirts of the big city. :)
Yeah here there's a supermarket in walking distance (around 10 minutes) but why would I walk there if I can drive? I don't want to lug my groceries back on foot.
They are! I am from Norway and I lived in one and it really sucked. There was absolutely NOTHING in the neighbourhood. You could just walk, and walk and there would just be houses. Had to make 3 bus changes to get a Wall Mart to guy bread and milk. I had it after 6 months. Went on a limb and chose to go to the Netherlands. Never been there before. Lived there 3 years. Totally awesome. Norway is a bit between an American city and a Dutch one. Like things are much more spread out than the Netherlands, so I loved how many facilities and activities were inside Dutch neighbourhoods. You have your local potato fries place. Grocery store, neighborhood doctor etc. And biking to town would usually be quite quick. And you could also see it. Like I could see how Dutch teenagers would bike around and meet friends and do activities together because stuff was close. In America mom and dad has to drive kids everywhere for anything. They are basically infantilized. I noticed that with American students in college. They were very immature compared to Europeans at the same age. They were not use to taking care of themselves. How could they be used to it? They were never given the chance. They couldn't be given the chance because the city structure didn't allow it.
@@erikengheim1106 It depends very much on location. In American cities that have doubled or tripled in size in recent decades (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin), the suburbs are all newer and there will be very few suburbs that were once small towns or that were built out in the 19th or first half of the 20th centuries. But for cities that have been large for a long time (Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, etc), the situation is very different. You'll find an assortment of suburbs and suburban neighborhoods depending on location and age. But you're right that older, less car-dependent, more walkable urban places often have crime problems and poor school systems. And then the places that do combine the best of urban fabric with low crime and good schools do tend to be pricey. It is a problem.
Im from Europe. I hate crowded spaces. I hate public transport. I would love to live in a nice area away from all the BS. And have a decent size land around my house.
Zoning in North America is a major contributor to making suburbs simply dormitary areas. In Europe, mixed-use zoning is the norm, with shops, eateries, schools, and light industry (like repair shops, car washes, and small workshops) mixed in with single and multiple occupancy homes and flats.
@@davestang5454 Maybe you are the one that lives in the alternate reality, for all Americans but you have said the inverse of what you are saying, some even brag about zoning not being mixed.
@@davestang5454 No it isn't. Only some of the older cities have it (Boston, New York, etc). The vast vast majority of the US do not have mixed zoning (basically every city that isn't in the states of New York, Massachussetts and Pennsylvania).
I live in an "inner suburb" of Melbourne, Australia. Our house block is 900 sq m in size (nearly a quarter of an acre) There is a primary (elementary) school 200 metres from home and two secondary schools within 15 minutes' walk. The tram is 300m away. The train station is a 12 minute leisurely walk. We have at least 25 public parks within 20 minutes' walking distance. Six of these are designated "off lead" shared doggie parks for our own doggie to play with other dogs (we take him every day). There are 3 coffee shops within a 5-minute walk (many more, plus restaurants and other stores if you walk for up to 10 minutes). Every park has modern, extensive play equipment for children (the primary school has two sets of play equipment - and is open for play on weekends). Because of all of the trees and gardens on people's properties, from an elevation of 15 metres it would look like you are in the middle of a forest. Except for the very old suburbs close to the city, every street has a footpath (sidewalk) and a nature strip with at least one large tree outside every house. Our street is lined with oak and plane trees. I would never dream of driving my car into the city. The public transport is much faster, safer, friendlier and more ecologically sound. I cannot imagine living somewhere where there is nothing but houses all around you.
You said "That's not a suburb, that's a city" and it's kind of true. Many european suburbs developed of nearby towns or villages being merged into the growing city nearby. Europe is not so vast and empty that cities can just expand and you can plot a giant suburb with only one-family homes next to it. And if they're planned, they're planned with town-like structure, so everything you need is nearby and a mix of single-family houses and apartment buildings, to avoid hot spots. We do have zoning, but no pure residential areas, bureaucracy manages that for us 😅 There are still rules, so you can't just open a pub or a supermarket anywhere.
For the suburb defition, you are kind of right : usually in Europe a suburb is usually a smaller city that mostly lives because of the existence of a larger city. The kind of suburb you describe existed in the 70's but on a smaller scale, and were quickly abandonned because they were unpractical and cities couldn't sustain them on the long term.
The issue here is that what Americans calls suburbs are not suburbs innthe literal sense, but rather villa zoning, thst exist, or at least have existed on most of Europe
In Norway we definitely have something similar to US suburbs called "drabant by" or "forsted". These were not villages or town that existed before. They were just like suburbs built specifically to house people for the city they surround. The key difference with US suburbs however is that the building of such suburbs would also involved building a subway stop, bus stop and similar. And around that key infrastructure we would build shops, doctors offices, libraries and similar. Thus these suburbs would be constructed to function a lot like a small city. They would basically have their own little center with shops around some public transit point which would take you to the main city center or one of these other suburb centers. I am pretty sure this pattern exists in other European countries though. Norway is a bit unique though in that like America there is no history of villages in Norway. In Europe villages are centers for multiple farms, but in Norway there is so little agricultural land relative to the total land area that farms had to be scattered around. You could not have clusters of farms. Thus you could not have villages either. In Norway one would not speak of a village but a "bygd". A "bygd" is an area with farms scattered around. A subsection of this arragment would be called a "grend".
@@erikengheim1106 it does exist in sweden, finland and Denmark. I seen simular situation in Germany and Netherlands, but they usually have some kind of village its being built on, not being exactly the same. Regardless the core concept of a 100% new built area is not really around in modern time. So Eastern Europe that never built like this in the 40 and 50 due to communism, and well don't built slide this today, because ita nor longer in vogue.... really don't have areas like that.
Ryan, most residential areas in the UK have restaurants, cafes, shops around them. We almost always have what we refer to a a corner shop , local express supermarket or a village shop or garage that doubles as the shop and the fuel filling station! Some of our garages (fuel stations) also have a post office counter where people can post things and get money out over the counter which is good for people who don’t have access to a bank locally.
We also have a local train station or if not a bus route and many people use a bicycle. Kids walk or ride their bikes to school unless their special type of school which can be a grammar school, specialist disability school or a particular themed like music or technical school and colleges. This is why European children grow up more independent and healthier.
@@matsv201we don't have zoning like you do there. Our planning is done through local councils, nothing is necessarily off limits but has to be agreed by them. We also have permitted development rights which means we can change certain aspects without needing any permission as long as building control check it's been don't correctly and sign it off. The most common house I'd say is semi detached or terrace overall but in towns there are plenty, plenty of detached homes. We just have small town centers which provides local shopping so we don't have to go into cities or drive to huge industrial estates to eat or shop. Our local towns are where we'd usually shop and in most larger towns wed have a supermarket for more local food shops which would be within walking distance of 30 mins at most but realistically we'd drive if doing a weekly food shop. Our towns and villages are different, villages are very small and would likely only have a couple of shops, many 1 local and a post office and a garage? But towns are just like little areas all on their own here, zoning isn't something we have at all.
@@kdog4587 While the Zoning law here in Sweden is often quite strict, it is beneficial. As long as you follow the zoning law, the building permit should pass automatically with in 6 weeks. (for a single home house). It sounds strange that you have no zoning law in the UK, so i google it, and it looks like.. well you probobly will get it in the future. A 7 or 8 meter height restriction is really common outside town/city centers. This also often come with a minimum roof angle (typically 15, 22.5 or 30 or 45 degrees). The reason for this is not to shade the neighbors plot during winter months. (sometimes the restriction is in number of floors in steed of hight over the ground). A trick some people use to get 3 floors into 7 meters is to raise the ground. Typically on 3 sides but not the 4th. Because the hight over ground is an average, this will typically make them fit one floor more. This also with a 4.5 meter build limit to the lot border. Of cause, when you come closer to the core of the village or the town, the maximum build height usually is increased. Its also worth saying that there is have been a max 3 floors or an elevator/lift have to be installed rule for many decades (since like the 1940s, well it use to be 4 but it was lowered to 3). So most local centers have a mix of 3 floor buildings and 7-10 floor buildings. Some towns have typically no height limit in the core of the town. The idéa was that nobody would build a 100 meter high skyscraper in a small town anyway.... ... well they was wrong. My employee is currently building i just that in the Small town of Hässleholm in Southern Sweden. Its one of those town that only exist because there happen to be a railway crossing there. Building a 100 meter office building.. because.. well it was allowed. (well sort if, a upper governmental body claimed that it was really not so they had to cut of some 15 meters of the top) (work for a prefab builder, and there was two reason for the office scraper. They needed a new main office, the old one was really cramped and spreed over town. And they also wanted to demonstrate that its possible to prefab build scrapers, something that is typically not done)
The 30 kilometer speed limit is cause of the car noises and because often kids play in the front yards and a ball can go into the street and a kid right behind the ball this is a way to keep noise low and kids, pedestrians and cyclists save. We also have parts of streets labeled as Streets where kids can play (Spielstraße)
@@seanmc1351 Germany. A "Spielstraße" has a max speed of 7 kph, you're allowed to drive through with your car, but neither you nor the pedestrians have the right of way here (you're equal to a pedestrian).
@@MyRegardsToTheDodoah, in the UK we do have some streets at that speed range but they’re not specially designated, and most roads (even outside towns) have pedestrian right of way. When I was growing up, we usually played in parks, commons or greens (they’re fairly ubiquitous: a small to medium sized patch of grass surrounded by houses)
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo We have the same here in Denmark, but I think the limit is 10 instead and with the same idea that anyone on the road have priority over the car
@@productjoe4069 All UK roads have pedestrian priority over all other road users, with cyclists next. The Highway code was changed last year to enforce this.
As a Romanian that went to US as a student,i can say that in Europe we have no suburbs. We have big cities, smaller towns or villages Suburbs are just an American thing. Maybe Canadian as well But the point here is, in this video we see a typical American suburb vs a typical European town
Raised in the Australian suburbs. Houses all round were single level on quarter acre blocks. However I had three schools within 7 minutes walking distance, a suburban train station less than 10 minutes walk away, a bus route with a stop 5 minutes away, a group of 4 shops 5 minutes walk away and a another group of shops, including bank and pharmacy, about 10 minutes away. Local doctor was 5 minutes walk away. A 5 minute train ride away was a suburb with many more shops and amenities. My point being that, although it wasn't like a European suburb, proper planning meant that residents were not reliant on cars. In fact we didn't have one until I was 12.
the concept of residential only is not common in Europe. Suburbs are a thing but they are way smaller (and mostly former villages that were "eaten" by a bigger town).
Or the other way around. Smaller villages are eating the town. 🙂 I see more and more city centres that are slowly dying, apartments more expensive that a house, crowded, polluted, all the shopping malls and large stores are just outside of the city, fancier restaurants also. People are starting to move from the city to a house just outside the city, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Netherlands many suburb like housing is built with residential housing only. Most cities in the Netherlands have these neighbourhoods, built after WWII to accomodate for the baby boom and the housing shortage, even upto today.
It's easy to see where the paranoia and conspiracies about 15 Minute cities comes from. It's a view that can only really come from America and why when I hear people raging about 15 minute cities in Britain I just laugh. The fear of everything being on your doorstep is so weirdly American and says so much about how Americans think that the American way of doing things is the default way or the right way (morally, ethically, ideologically etc).
It's not paranoia or conspiracy, the councils in Britain have detailed plans on their websites for 15 minute cities and how they will implement them even though people don't support it. They've even put up bollards and camera's in some places blocking roads and residents have been destroying them and fighting back against the tyranny. This in conjuction with digital banking where people who don't have the "correct" political view will have access to their money denied if they rock the boat, which has already happened with people here in the UK if they try to make a political party or even expose something on RU-vid. We don't want communism as it is enslavement. Anyone with a working brain should want that.
@@willblack8575 True but this guy is talking about his village (which sounds more like a small town with all of those shops. My village has a converted container as it's only shop, so there are extremes.
the problem is we already have 15-minute cities, in fact, 15-minute cities would be a downgrade for most people, especially in the areas they are proposed. so the question is what is the real purpose of making the cities worse? and why do 15-minute cities always seemingly come with lots of cameras to fine any transgression? if you want to add more shops or bus stops just do it without the cameras, fines, and bollards its really not that hard.
@@P.G.WodelouseWho told about cameras and fines? The idea of a 15 minute city is that everyone can reach anything they need within at most 15 minutes without having to drive. So, it's a matter of urban planning and no restriction on residents.
Maybe it is only in America where residential area only have houses? In Malaysia, residential areas come with: - commercial spots that have restaurants, 7-elevens & other convenience stores, super/hypermarkets, clinics, salons, auto workshops, etc. - playgrounds. Some also have badminton/tennis/basketball/etc courts. - schools - train stations & bus stops Typically, suburban areas in Malaysia only had houses/landed property. But over time, flats, apartments & condos were also built within residential areas. Generally speaking, a "residential" area is where people "reside." Therefore, all forms of housing are all built within the same space.
In Germany, my village, Although an independent municipality, is basically a suburb. Young families from the city moving here to raise their kids in a calmer environment. I bike to work into the city in 20 minutes, its 10 by car. I have, in a walking time of 5 minutes, a supermarket, 2 bakerys, a gas station, a kebab, a thai place, a massage salon, my son's (and mine ~25 years ago) kindergarten, a veggie/fruit store, a butcher, a pharmacy, the Elementary school my son will walk to with his friends when he turns 6, a disco, the almost 1000 year old church BUILT ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF A ROMAN RUIN ( i love that random fact) a bar, a restaurant...oh and my driving school and a hairdresser. And a doctor. And a dentist. 2 playgrounds and a forest. Thats all in a 5 minute walk. Thats all stuff my son can go to on his own with his friends when he is older. I know its not all the same everywhere in the us, i just saw some documentaries about kids basically not going out on their own..our playdates are walking to the playground, 5 parents chilling with a cool beer while our kids have fun. Soon they'll do that on their own and bike everywhere. The lake is 15 minutes from here. I feel like i have everything. My new job is gonna be 10 minutes over in the next village. I wouldn't wanna live somewhere in the middle of nowhere with an hour car ride everywhere. Or for my son to be bound there.
“A train station in the suburbs?!” killed me. If you come to the northeast we have them practically everywhere (because our cities are older). Our suburbs are like a cross between the European suburbs and the suburbs described in this video (which are mostly the newer suburbs in the south, much of the Midwest outside Chicago, and much of the west outside of the Bay Area and LA)
I lived in central mass for a couple of months, and despite it being Amherst (where there's the UMass campus, Amherst college, Mt Holyoke college, smith college and Hampshire college all in one area), I was still unable to just go home from hanging out with my friends after school, despite there being busses around
My town in France has slowly absorded the nearby villages as it grew. So each suburb has schools, shops, sport associations, at a short distance in a safe environment, (some streets are too narrow for cars to go through). Kids of the same suburbs (we call it a neighbourhood too) often end up friends as adults. As we say, "a neighbourhood is like a small village".
London developed like that in the main, it sprawled out over centuries engulfing little villages that had their own main streets with shops and amenities, so every suburb is almost an old village at a small scale
I live in what you would call suburb, but its a village here in UK, the road through the village is about a mile long, with about 1000 to 1500 house either side and side estates,, i will list what we have on our mile road. 4 what you would call 7 to 11' 3 pubs 1 resturant 3 fish and chip shops 2 pizza take aways 1 kebab take away i chinese take away 1 indian take away 2 doctors surgeries 1 chemist, pharmacy 6 hair dressers 1 librabry 1 holiday shop i tanning salon 1 tatoo salon 2 funeral directors 3 schools 1 church i tyre repair center 2 car mechanic garages hand car wash breakfast bar cafe butchers fresh fruit and vegtables place dry cleaners and laundry think there are one or two things i might have forgot great public transport, thats all we use, for work, go into the bigger towns for extra shopping, or go to the cities for a day out i might have forgot a couple of things, we also have cricket ground 2 lakes for shishing 10 minute bus ride 18 hole golf coarse
Where TF you live? That's A LOT for a 1 mile stretch here in the UK. Yeah that's not even a village, I grew up in a village surrounded by villages, that same 1 mile stretch had 1 newsagent, 1 grocers, 1 bakers, 1 chinese, 1 chip shop, a post office, a doctors, a community hall and a primary school. And that was next to a big military base
@@lonewaer there is a culture difference, our houses in the village are 100+ years old, these were built around the coal mines, for the miners to live in with families, the mines used to run 24/7, early days there was no buses, transport to towns, so everything was set up for live, men worked, ladies, took kids to school, its not sexiest thing, one week miner did day shift, next week back shift the next week night shift, the mines have since closed, but because properties in the villages for the old miners houses are cheap, or to take over the shop space that once was is cheap, some houses are rund down, if you have house for 30.00 spend few quid to do it up, fully modern for 50.000 all in, what did happen here in the north east, was, the shut down of the mines, meant houses people bought while working, were worth nothing, so they tried to get some rental income, which backfired, because areas because bad areas, for thos not working, and destryed them, there is a village where this happened badly, they tried to sell the house for £1.00, could not sell them
Hey, Portugal here. Our suburbs are the areas outside of the metropolitan areas, including the historical areas of bigger cities like Lisbon, Porto or Coimbra. Otherwise, our suburbs have everything, such as trains, buses, medical centers, supermarkets, pharmacies, butchers, bakers, coffee shops, public gardens, fitness areas, and the list goes on. Places are build to provide all the basic needs of the citizens. 🌸🌺🌸
German here. I think the main difference is that we don't have this weird zonal segregation of residential vs. commercial areas. Over here the only zones usually not mixed in new developments are industrial and residential areas, everything else is fair game. As a result the suburbs are basically just the part of the city that happens to be outside the city. It looks like the city proper because it mainly contains the same things, just on a smaller scale. You have shops, restaurants, supermarkets and in some places even cinemas, theaters or concert halls. In most German cities this has a historic reason after all today's suburban areas outside the big cities once were cities in their own right that were absorbed by their bigger neighbors and thus lost their status, the local zoning and infrastructure however mostly stayed and was simply integrated in the larger network.
Bruh, I’ve been all over the world (except Middle East) and America is like the only place that doesn’t have any trees. In the sense that there aren’t any naturally occurring ones around, they’re either intentionally planted or in a forest. Like you see 3 trees in an American city and it’s a miracle😂😂 there are trees everywhere in Europe, just in people’s gardens, in the streets, next to schools.❤
Germany, for instance, has no dedicated school busses. Kids in Germany either go to school on foot, by bicycle, are driven by parents, or take public transport. There are busses which are mostly for school kids and run on a schedule complimenting the school schedules, but those aren't forbidden for adults. You can absolutely take the 'school bus' as an 80-year-old granny. This is possible because there's public transportation and mixed-zone neighbourhoods where there's at least an elementary school nearby (unless we're talking about a very small village where there's not enough children for a dedicated elementary school). Kids get to be independent much earlier that way, often already going to kindergarten on their own around the age of 5 (depends a little on the traffic situation on the way and the general behaviour of the kid). Going to school alone and being allowed to ride your bike to school were rites of passage when I was a kid. You were very proud the first time you rode your bike to school on your own.
There are dedicated school busses in Germany, but not for every school. And they're busses that normally drive public transport routes, just with a different symbol in the destination display, when they're used as school busses. And no, a non-school person isn't allowed to take such a dedicated school bus. These busses are not part of the regular schedule and are paid for by the school.
Im not from Germany but, our ''suburbs'' are pretty much identical to this. You have small businesses weaved in the middle of lived in houses even supermarkets on key locations so you dont have to fire up your car every time you want to go shopping. I find it to be much more desireable as a city dweller. American suburban 'experience' is more similar to rural experience around here. You have your house in the middle of nowhere and your only lifeline to civilization is your car!
The reference to the Ponzi scheme is because the tax revenue from many suburbs doesn't cover the cost of providing the public services (e.g. road maintenance etc.) - if you have half the number of people/properties in an area then they need to be paying double the taxes to maintain it, but that doesn't happen. To try and make up for this, they zone more land and build more suburbs so they can use that new tax revenue to pay for the services in the existing areas. You then need to build more suburbs to cover the costs of those new suburbs and this keeps repeating - like a Ponzi scheme where you're always getting new victims to pay off the previous level.
There’s definitely a lot of truth to what he’s saying. Note he said from the 1950s onwards. Expensive city centre living is very much a 21st century thing, especially in the USA.
Realize that in the US most suburbs were planned as such. In Europe, most (but not all) suburbs appeared organically. Usually the bigger cities back in the day were surrounded by numerous small towns and hamlets. As the city grew these towns were "swallowed up" and became districts of the larger city - however much of the structure remains with a small center remaining from its time as its own small town. These minor centers would typically have shops, restaurants and misc public services, and a church. In some cities this is very evident if the city have remnants of its old city defenses (usually a stone wall, along the perimeter) - where you today find that wall smack in the middle of the city with many miles of city outside of it. Also many city districts still have the name the town that it once was - evident with the district name ending in "-town", "-hamlet" or "-village" in its respective language.
Everything about housing, city expansions, suburbs, new towns in my country is planned and regulated, from about 1900 till now. It is a European country by the way. We just planned it a little better than America did. And we still do. The downside is that it takes a lot of time. From the first planning fase, of a suburb or new town, until the first (let alone the last!) home owner or tenant get the key of their new house or rental takes easily 10 years or more. And 10 years is fast. One reason is the bureaucratic process and the other is that a suburb or new town is a whole concept. So roads, public transport, utilities (energy, sewage), shops and bike infrastructure needs to be taken in with the process. With all these stakeholders the process is going very slowly. A suburb is planned by the government (municipal, provincial or national), not by developers. And the government (the urban planning departement) issues/sell the plots of land to developers with a zoning obligation, so with % for shops, % social rental housing, % mid segment rental, % houses for sale etc. The municipality plans or issues the plots for schools, roads, sport facilities and parks.
There are still lots of planned suburb districts in europe. But they were usually planned with shops, services and transportation in close proximity to residential buildings.
I don't think it was meant to be flex, it's just how it works. The planning process should definitely be faster, but in the end you get a suburb/neighborhood which has atleast some if not all of the features you'd never find in a purely residential US suburb: kindergardens, elementary schools, small shops and restaurants, doctors, social/communal services etc. And because usually it's planned to be denser, you get better public transport as well.
@@AV-we6wo Most K-12 schools are in neighborhoods. Most kids walk to school. In my one county alone there are almost 170 schools. The county is about 600sq kilometers. The rest of that stuff is right out of the neighborhood which is 5 minute drive or walking distance.
The little German town I live in has been constructed out of four villages. The space between has been developped over the last 50 years. It all started with a new school. It was placed just outside of the biggest of the four villages. (Locals commented on it: who should visit this big school? It's too much for our little place) The planners did some sort of zoning, they created a new center - the 'Neue Mitte' - next to the school with lots for two churches, a kidergarden and youthhouse and a small shopping center. They built a new mainstreet to connect all village and new center. And the they began to fill in the space between. With single family homes, multi family homes, play grounds, daycares and small businesses. They also also declared a commercial area (but there is also housing allowed, but not the primary purpose) for the local instustry, car dealers, groceries and many trades. And it's all in walking distance and the railway is also nearby. We are in the Rhein Main Area - many neighbors work in Frankfurt. I think I live in sometime that could be called a suburb of Frankfurt if it was located in the US, but here in Germany there are villages everywhere since the middle ages. So it looks different.
@@dorisschneider-coutandin9965 Sounds familiar. I also live in a suburb south of Frankfurt. Two cities that merged in the 70s. Everything is walkable, mixed zoning allows for grocery stores, doctors, small takeaways and restaurants next to residential buildings, both single family and mid-rises. Plus, we are in Frankfurt within 25 minutes by train. A luxury compared to US developments.
Exactly. This kind of mixed zoning actually benefits everyone, both local citizens and local business owners - but it seems US people are not able to understand until they get the chance to come to Europe. Including how it feels to just walk to the nearby S-Bahn and arrive at Frankfurt Hauptwache mere 25 minutes later.
I live in a typical suburb in the outer west of Melbourne, Australia. Within our suburb we have a post office, train station, four schools, a community centre, two parks and children’s playgrounds, a football/cricket ground, two supermarkets, two pharmacies, two petrol stations, two churches, McDonalds, a pizza parlour and several other fast food outlets, a gym, a medical centre, two childcare centres, a mechanic, a hairdresser, two bottle shops - and a number of other miscellaneous retail/commercial properties. All within walking distance, although we do have a local bus service as well. I can live quite happily in my own suburb without going anywhere near the city. I occasionally visit surrounding suburbs to go to a hardware or craft store, but I rarely travel more than 3km from home. That is why during Covid, even though Melbourne was the most locked down city in the world, being restricted to 5km from home was no real hardship.
As someone from England, I can say that the reason we don't have our suburb houses spaced out so much is because there isn't enough land for that. England is pretty densely populated despite it being very small, so the country cant give a lot of houses lots of space.
About schools: Here in Switzerland there are kindergartens and elementary schools in each part of a town, even the suburbs. They are near enough that children can walk there ON THEIR OWN. You don't need a schoolbus. Older children (>7th grade) go to their school by bike or by (normal) bus. It's nice that you met friends and played in your neighbourhood. But ... did you have a forest? A river? Playgrounds? A shop? A bakery? That's what my children could walk to.
Suburbs in the Netherlands are more like small villages. I live in a relatively new suburb. It is buid as a separate village with its own local shopping center, schools, doctors, sport clubs etc etc. And it is stiil part of a city of 160000 people. For me biking to the shopping center is a 7 min ride, trough the suburb. By car it is also 7 min drive. The cars cannot drive through the suburb, they have to go around. That makes it safe to bike and walk and play. Watch 'just not bikes'
12:25 It can be true in Europe for sure, non public transport drivers are at the bottom of the foodchain in metropolitan areas, since they are extremely bad for the cities (pollution, road infrastructure, parking spaces, block the public transports) when compared to good public transportation system. Even in a relative small capital like Helsinki, it can be much faster to walk around the city center area than to drive, especially in "cutting" directions via areas where non public traffic is banned Also, why this guy is factually correct, he presents them in the an overtly anti-capitalistic way 😂 Also, "kids need to be driven to school" is not wrong if they have to take the school bus, which is btw an institution I haven't seen anywhere else
But having a good public transport system is required and in the UK, our public transport gets worse every year and both the Gov and councils are still trying to drive through anti-car policies, especially London and the other big cities and even in small villages where they now put up un-enforcable 20mph signs..
School buses are the same as public transit. It's a publicly funded item. What's the difference between taking a bus directly to school, and a bus being dropped off nearby? Except it's more efficient and faster to gather all together and go to one common point then a public bus for the kids.
@stevefl7175 you do realize that the bus is not only for kids? So loads of different ppl can take it, while in the US school busses are...only for children. So instead of taking the best and fastest route, the bus has to drive to many different pickup spots.
@@River-rf2yh tf? I never knew it was only for kids, are there normal busses then going or is it just kids busses? Coz i was going to school with a bus in Croatia for 12 years and it was just a public bus, its always a public bus there so this just makes me nore confused like why tf would they throw resources into splitting public busses from school busses
I deeply miss the fact that after transition from communism on a wave of americanization many, if not the most, of train stations in smaller towns in my country (Poland) has been demolished.
A statement regarding bike lanes from someone who has lived in Prague all his life: It's not that bike lanes are ruining the city, it's more the absolutely idiotic choices of places where these lanes are. I drive on the road, shown at 11:40, almost daily by car and you'd be surprised to see more than one cyclist per hour there. It's a very busy road with almost permanent traffic jams and I couldn't imagine a more pleasant way to die than being run over by a notoriously aggressive Prague taxi driver while being on a bicycle. Some other example would be Evropská street. Another busy road where you can see one suicidal cyclist per hour. There are two lanes in each direction, which have been narrowed to the width of a small car, in order to fit small bike paths. Fortunately, inter-city busses that absolutely do not fit onto said lanes drive there regularly as well, endangering a biker's life just a little bit more. The list goes on and on, I hope you get my point lol.
As a German, I can say, there is no such thing like an American style suburb. Germay doesn't really have the space for such an extencive type of residential area. On top of that. Cities in Germany are usually 200-2000 years old, meaning the suburban areas do not just expand around the main city area, but also adapt to the location of ruins, castles, other old buildings and natural obstacles such as rivers, hills and natural sources that are being harvested in the area, meaning you can't build anywhere. I need to say, it is a nice thing to be able to reach things on bike or on foot rather than having to waste gas for that. It also helps with the traffic as less people are driving generally. On the Flip side, you obviously don't have that much living space or backyard, compared to the US suburbs, your average living space is maybe half the size.
My husband and I ran some errands the other day in the car because we have to here in the States. While driving down the road, I thought how ugly and/or depressing certain areas look. The name McSame came to mind. When you're living in a suburb, and there is no commercial infrastructure like businesses, stores or restaurants etc., the tax burden is solely on the homeowner. I live in such a town, where the developers made the huge mistake of zoning most areas as residential only. We have to drive to the next town to do most of our business there, and it really irks me that 90000 people have to spend their hard earned money in the next town, and that town also enjoys all the tax revenue from us. Growing up in Germany, we could walk to the grocer, butcher or bakery, or have a nice drink or meal, at the neighborhood pub or restaurant. So much nicer!
In the UK, the suburbs are not residential only, we have small shops usually within walking distance so we don't need to go into town every time we need to buy some food as well as further reduction on the reliance on cars.
I can't imagine living where there's no alternative to the car. I grew up on an island, even there, as kids, we took the bus everywhere. Football practice, marching band, girl scouts, school, swimming. We got around on our own as soon as we started school (6yrs old) and never depended on our parents to have a social life. I often envied city kids for all the cool stuff they could do, but I see now that my childhood was quite privileged compared to a lot of other kids.
The video offer a pretty limited (and negative) view of American suburbs, which vary widely depending on where they are and when they were built. Some of oldest suburbs were 'streetcar' suburbs and many were absorbed into the central cities as they grew (many Chicago neighborhoods were once independent streetcar suburbs, for example). Others were originally small towns that were absorbed into metro areas (but not the central city). Still others were developed in the early mid-20th century when autos were becoming common but multiple cars per household were rare. These suburbs tend to have smaller lot sizes and more commercial areas included within them. The isolated, 'McMansion' style suburbs were a later development. There are plenty those, but there are plenty of other options as well.
I can probably summarise the whole video in one sentence. European suburbs are built to be useful to people. In other words, everything you can possibly need is just a few minutes walk or cycle away from your house. School, grocery stores, GP and dentist, sport center or playground, shared BBQ sometimes, at least one restaurant, household items store selling anything from frying pans and cleaning products to power tools and so on. And when for some reason you are missing some specific store, you can always just hop on the nearest bus or tram, sit for few minutes and you are in the city center. Last but not least, they are mostly built to be walk and cycling friendly, cars are secondary.
Funny thing, when you go along houses in Germany where american soldiers are living, the lawn are short mowed and without any plants. Just like in the US.
Some germans prefer a clean english lawn style too, its not for me, but its still better then sterile bare earth with only a few select plants allowed to grow and some granny exterminating anything else that tries to live there daily xD
There used to be an American couple living near me (UK) and every seasonal event they'd put out an incredibly dense amount of decorations on their house and in the garden. Any other time of year though, and it was the same very short and uniform lawn with no flowers or other greenery. They even removed the hedge lining their property making it completely open to anyone walking by. While this is second hand gossip, apparently they removed the hedge because they're "messy, ugly and block the light" and they removed the plants and flowers because "they're only pretty a couple of weeks a year and otherwise attract too many bugs." It's weird and kind of sad how culturally we're so different. Most of my neighbours love to be out in the gardens, planting new flowers and seeing what else has started growing naturally. Many of them brought flowers as a welcoming gift to the overseas neighbours, too. In kind, they've complained that nobody else puts in any effort to dressing their properties up for Easter, Halloween or Christmas.
I was honestly surprised that you were surprised that there is a train station near a suburb but not when there is a tramrail literally inside the suburb
So basically what you are saying is that there are no suburbs in Europe or Germany and that is because the one criteria for a suburb to actually be a suburb is to be poorly designed. Am I getting that right so far?
No. What everyone, outside of the US is saying is that US suburbs are stupidly constructed (by regulation/law) and force the use of vehicles to go anywhere or do anything. Whereas everyone else has facilities nearby and can chose not to use a vehicle in most cases.
I live in the suburbs in Ireland. Everything I needed was within a 10 minute walk of my house. Primary school: 4 - 5 minute walk Secondary school: 8 - 10 minutes Public library: 2 - 3 minutes Shop (groceries): 4 minutes Chip shop (fish and chips): 3 - 4 minutes Church: 8 - 10 minutes Chemist (pharmacy): 3 - 4 minutes Bakery: 3 - 4 minutes Domino's Pizza: 2 - 3 minutes Video rental (now an off-license): 3 - 4 minutes Butchers: 3 - 4 minutes Vegetable shop: 3 - 4 minutes Bus stop: 20 - 30 seconds Factory my father worked in: 4 - 5 minutes Post office: 10 minutes I can't imagine needing a car to go to school or just to go to the shops or anything like that.
I live right next to Montreal, Canada, in a suburb and all those numbers are the same for me, except that I need a car to achieve the same time. so by foot it's more than 1h for secondary school and church. 20 minutes for library, bakery, pharmacy. etc actually, except for a primary school right next to me (still 10 minutes, since there's no pedestrian shortcut) the nearest other thing that is not a house or a duplex, is a luxury grocery store 15 minutes away
I'll top that because i live in a former built in the 50s communist city-now district of my city 3 convinience stores: 2 minutes, one is 30 seconds away from my doorway Hairdresser: 10 second walk Pharmacy/drug store: two within 1-2 minutes Cosmetics shop: under my apartment on the ground floor: 30 seconds A kebab and another small bar: 1 minute Vegetable/fruit stand: view from my balcony down below: 15 seconds Butchers shop/meat store: 20 seconds Bakery: 20 seconds Two banks: 30s My banks ATM: 2 minutes Kiosk: 2 minutes Print shop: 5 minutes Glasses store: 2 minutes Pub: 4 minutes Nearest supermarket: just past the district centre about 15 minute stroll Nearest shopoing centre: 15 minutes, both 4 minute bike rides with the bike paths Post office delivery boxes: 1 minute Etc. Etc. I literally even have a view to the other side of the road where a bus line loop is where i can take the bus and be in the city centre in 25-45 minutes or take a 5min trip to a tram stop and be in the centre in 15 minutes. Literally everything i need to live except for the busy social life is within a 2 or 15min walk. I live in a massive city and never leave my district because i don't need to. I only go to the centre to take a train, go to uni or meet with friends. That's how a suburb should work
European suburbs are created organically, they just spread out from the city center. There all sorts of small shops and businesses and also a strong sense of neighborhood community. In most cases you go shoping, to the bank, post, etc., by simply walking. 😊
I grew up in south Africa and its kinda similar to the US in that you would struggle without a car, so I'm glad I live in Europe. I have epilepsy so cant drive and don't have any interest in driving anyway but everything I need I can get to on foot here in central Edinburgh, and occasionally the bus if I need to go slightly further. Very good way to live in my opinion.
i worked in london, greater london, harrow to greenford, about 7 miles to work, a cyclist past me when i started, i passed him down the road, half way through my work journey, he caught up with me and passed me, and beat me by about 20 minutes
The US used to have the largest and most impressive tram/streetcar network in the world. But it got bulldozed for more cars. The walkable, dense cities you used to bave also got bulldozed for car parking.
The old cities are still there. It's just they grew out. People moved out of the inner cities for space and to get away from crime mostly. So the trams didn't get used as much. They got replaced by buses.
@@stevefl7175 Yes some of the old city is there but you can look up before and after photos that show block of apartments replaced with parking and predominantly black neighbours replaced with highway.
@@nozzlepie Part of that is drop in tram usage as people moved away. With them went some of the tax base (if they went to suburbs outside the city limits, which many are). So they got replaced with buses for public transit and people drove. If the city really grew, then you would need high-ways for them. Also, a lot of the highways are interstate highways, so it's not just for the city. It's for people passing through, and more important to the overall country, trucking. The trucking industry moving goods is what it's used more as much as anything. They just picked those areas because they were poor (and/or black in some cases) to run the highway through.
@@stevefl7175 1. a motorway should go around a city, not through it. 2. car & oil companies bought up tram companies to purposefully let them decline, declare bankruptcy, tear out the rails & thus get rid of the competition. 3. people still live in cities, so the tax-base is still there, suburbs aren't taxed enough for the roads they have, want to know more then watch the Not Just Bikes video about zoning that was recommended.
@@LeafHuntress 1) That is probably true, it should. That's not always true here for cities, many highways go right through the middle of cities. While we like to blame the car for it, some of that is because of trucking. The interstate system allows you to go to, and through, cities to get across the country. A chunk of that is it makes it easier for good and services to be brought into and out of cities, to head to the rest of the country 2) That's an urban legend really. The tram companies were already bankrupt and going out of business by the time and car and oil companies bought them. People had already stopped riding them, as they preferred the convenience of the car. Particularly if they had to go any distance, as the trams were slow. They were fine if you lived near where you were going. With cars, there was also gridlock, which made the trams worse. They also had far too low pricing. So low ridership and low fares bankrupted the tram lines. The car companies did buy them, but after they were bankrupt to get the right of ways of these dead transit system. 3) Depends on the suburb. There are plenty of suburbs who pay more then enough in taxes to afford the roads. I mean, let's face it, they wouldn't be taxed enough for public transit if it existed. They're not in Europe either, it's the cities that pay for the public transit in Europe's suburbs. Not sure how that is a difference. No public transit system exists that pays for itself.
He calls them Ponzi-Schemes because the cities have to build more suburbs all the time to get money to keep the city running. A big lot with a single family on it needs as much infrastructure as a mid-rise with 8 families in it but generates only 1/8th of the tax revenue.
The video apparently doesn't capture what a "suburb" is in the US. There are no such “suburbs” in Germany. Smaller cities or towns that lie within the catchment area of a larger city are sometimes referred to as suburbs, but they are simply little towns or villages that are just close to a big city and therefore usually have a connection to the city's rail network. These little towns/villages are not created on the ground because the city dwellers want to live in the countryside. Of course, many people from the big cities like to move to the smaller ones nearby, but the smaller towns/villages emerged and woke up on their own. US suburbs, on the other hand, arose/are created because city dwellers from the big city began to settle in front of their gates, they are "sleeping towns" where people go after their work, they have not grown originally and therefore do not have a large infrastructure in the form of Restaurants etc. Therefore the comparison in the video is misleading and meaningless. As a German, there is no question as to which I like better. A life in a US suburb would not be for me.
In the 1920's and 30's the London railway companies built lines and stations out from the city centre and new 'suburbs' were built around the new stations. Similar schemes were carried out across many large European cities. So we do expect to have a rail station in older suburbs of larger cities.
The war on cars is an American thing, the slogan was created in US. Regarding EU suburbs we don’t have the same set of rules, basically every residential area must have schools, shops, kindergartens. The only restrictions in suburbs are related to industrial development.
And in the European suburbs generally might not be the case to have tram but train stations are more common and bus stations. In western EU countries you can find different types of trains for short distances: Regional trains which serve towns and villages closed to cities and suburban trains which serve the outskirts of the cities and they have a higher frequency, generally one train every 10 minutes.
Also worth mentioning that in Europe highways are not going in the cities (with few exceptions of some highways built in the 60-70s), they go around the cities.
the "mommy&daddy driving u to school" is just to point that it is required to take a ride instead of cycling or walking. even if u took the school bus the point still stands.
@@noelcatanzaro3405 oh yeah right, the video is completely wrong and there is 0 truth to the fact that america is car dependant concrete jungle with barely any sidewalks
I think, the relevant thing is, that kids in Europe learn to be responsible on their own. Walking to school alone or taking normal public transport requires them to take care of traffic. Also they could walk anywhere after school. But they are taught by their parents to take responsibility for the way there and back, not to go out to play without consulting them, etc. With parents and school busses, they are brought from home directly to school. No chance to walk in the wrong direction, no chance to stop at a playground, no chance to buy some ice cream on a small kiosk on the way. If you have a regular bus from public transport it maybe also drives kids to school, but they can drive with it as well into the city and watch a movie in the cinema. The same with sports and other events. By being able to go there themselves, children have more freedom and are more independent and responsible. Things that are important to learn as a child.
in europe a suburb is just a city neighbourhood thats a bit calmer and on the edge of the city instead of in te center so yes we have public transport, retaurants , shops, anything the city itself has.
Suburbs in other countries aren't _exclusively_ residential, that's the difference. Yes, on a lot of streets that don't have through traffic, they will be just for houses ... but on the main roads around or through the residential areas, there will regularly be smaller shops and facilities dotted around. I live on a suburban street, and all I can see from my window are houses, but walk 3 minutes and there's a row of shops, with a convenience store, a pizza place, a hairdresser, a café and a couple of others. Because they are small and just designed to serve the local area, they don't need huge parking lots, because their customers will almost always live within walking distance. (That's where it helps that houses, and particularly curtilage, is smaller, because you can get more potential customers within a given radius).
European suburbs : "Let's just make it a nice and practical place to live in" American suburbs : "How about we make it huuuuge, with lots of useless space nobody will ever use ?"
the closest thing you can get in europe to "proper US suburb" are "satelite towns" that have underdeveloped infrastructure, they could have stores but dont have any. There is usually bus stop as you are entitled to subsidized transport line if you are not lazy and ask for it, the process is really easy so there is usually no objections
I live in a German suburb. All the houses around me are fairly similar to mine. But we do have some comercial buildings sprinkled around. There is a barber shop not far away, a kindergarden and 2 restaurants and even a shoemaker. There is also public transport so I could take a bus into the city any time I like. Sadly there is no longer a shop to buy groceries, so I have to drive a few kilometers to do grocery shopping. And that pisses me off. I wish I could walk to the store next door and buy essentials there.
My friends built a house in a village 14 km away from a town of 14 000 inhabitants. Still, there is a kindergarten, a primary school, church, little shop and a cafe. Of course there is a bus stop. In that bigger town, there is a train station , within 1h you're in Berlin. American suburbs, because of the zoning law, are quite creepy to me.
I grew up in Belgium, in a village. There it is mainly single family houses with bigger land plot. But even there we had a primary school (or two), a bakery, a pharmacy, a butcher,... Granted, we moved to a smaller village when I was 16, with only a school and a bakery. We do need a car in the countryside, because public transportation sucks there (there are bus stops, but depending on the size and the geographic location, it can be as few as one in the mornning, one in the evening and nothing in between.) Generally there is one street with more traffic, the rest is fairly quiet. I walked to my primary school, we had a public library where I lived before I turned 16, I could walk around the village and go to friends without any troubles. Now I live in a suburb in Germany. It's still the city for me, a village child, but it's not as busy, noisy, full of people as the city center. I live in a building with 32 appartments, we have a high school beside, there are some restaurants and bars not too far (although I'm an introvert, so I don't go there) and I don't use public transportation because of my social anxiety, but it's there.
In Romania we turned the base/1st floor of the residential buildings (we call them "bedroom neighbourhoods") into commercial spaces, so in many instances you can grab groceries right after you exit the stairway. To emphasize how ridiculous this is, I lived for years in a building with 4 stairways/entrances, and at one end of the building there was a larger grocery store, at the middle of the building a smaller grocery store, and on the other side of the street there was a bigger grocery store from a supermarket chain. 3 grocery stores in a 3 minute walking distance. Between these, you have bank offices/ATMs, pharmacies, cafe's, pastry shops, utility stores and all other kinds of stuff. A bit chaotic, yes, but very damn convenient.
This is what I like, if you need something in a hurry, you don't have to plan a whole trip to some massive mall to buy it, unless it's something very specific, you can just grab it in 10 minutes, I live like a minute away from a tiny grocerie store.
In Norway they have trams busses and train together into the city, the trains go under and over ground and a ticket if you buy a day ticket is transferable between all transport modes and also island ferry boats in Oslo . Just buying a transport ticket and touring around is an adventurous day out.
These leafy "suburbs" could be any where in the UK as well. We have bus stops on nearly every street. European suburbs will each have a local shopping area. In my town in the UK each area/estate will have it's own range of shops etc. My nearest shop is a 3 minute walk. We have 2 schools within 5 minutes walk of my house. Most kids walk to school . Sounds like you had a " proper" childhood. Playing outdoors and walking everywhere.
As a French, I feel like it's kind of comparing oranges and apples here. European suburbs are not what the US would call suburbs. I'm French, and what we call suburbs are more like little towns inside the town or little towns on their own. I don't think I ever saw one suburb in France without at least one business somewhere (usually at least a bakery and a tobacco shop, yeah stereotypes are sometimes true). For the part about the war on cars it's especially true in France and it's a pain in the *ss if you don't live in a major city with good public transportations. I used to live in an average sized town, they are closing roads saying they will make the tram free (still not the case but a lot of roads are closed) and it used to take me 45 minutes of tram to go to my job 7 km away from my home, with my car it was 20-25 minutes at that time. My departure and destination were on the same line, so it's just because it's insanely slow. Now I live outside of the city, it's a pain to go inside because of the closed roads and because if you don't have an electric car or a very recent one you are not allowed to enter. Public transportation to go to my job's office would take me almost 2 hours instead of 35 minutes by motorbike / 50 minutes by car (in France, filtering is tolerated which is why motorbike is faster). But in 2024 I won't be allowed to enter with my motorbike because it's too old and in 2025 my car won't be allowed.
I feel Not Just Bikes' videos on these subjects are more detailed. Meaning they back up their claims better with facts, even though the claims are basically the same as here. Like they explain the "ponsy scheme" and the thing about demolishing neighborhoods of minorities and give examples. So I recommend to watch these too. 😄
in europe suburbs tend to be just outskirt of the city and it is a very natural transition. basically half way between a urban center and rural area and depending on size of city and country rural can start even 10 or less KM out of city center(by road)
Our suburbs are designed with some facilities in mind. It is made to always be walking distance to a buss station to the city and close to things kids need like football or schools. In cities, it's a larger focus on stores, offices, restaurants, and cafés. With some homes there to.
Most European suburbs are villages that have merged into cities, but the areas between these (ex farmland) are planned, but many are over 100 years old even then. Planning of most European cities in many cases stipulates that the have to be a range of housing types and prices, local amenities and shops. They are built in from the start for convenience. I am in a typical suburb around London (so typical, a film is being make at the end of our road). House is one of the younger ones at 100 years old but the nearby road has been in use for 1000 (or maybe 3000) years. In 5 mins I can walk to 3 pubs, 3 restaurants, 6 cafes, 4 food shops, a cinema, a park and more. Also 6 bus stops and an underground station. I use the car maybe once a week.
It probably is really a different concept: in Italy you typically have a mix of houses and commercial services, I can't think of a "house only" territory. Typically industrial complexes are segregated somewhat far from the city (to limit how much they pollute people) and then there are parts which are "mostly residential" and other which are "mostly offices, markets, etc.". But you (almost always) have the option of walking to a bakery, a small market and some other basic services...and this is the way it should be (IMO).
Hi Ryan. In the UK a suburb is an area outside of a city/town but close to it, which contains mainly homes, but usually also some shops, restaurants, schools, doctors and small businesses. A suburb in the UK is not exclusively homes.
You don't have mixed zoning (restaurants, grocery stores, light industry (for example car mechanic)) because of car makers and oil producers. They lobbied for strictly separating the zones, removed the tram network, and now you have to drive everywhere. Fort his you need two things: -A car -Fuel
I live 8 miles outside of Dublin City . I’ve a huge shopping centre ten minutes walk from my house . Local schools within fifteen / twenty minutes walk. Two churches within twenty minute walk . Five pubs and a few restaurants within twenty minutes walk . Huge sports centre with Olympic size swimming pool is about a ten minute walk from my house . And this is a suburb . The suburbs in the US have nothing. Why would anyone want to live somewhere where you can’t just pop out for a pint of beer or some bread and milk from the shops . The US is just a strange place to live.
