Designing Urban Places that Don't Suck (a sense of place) 

But our entire nation does not look like that. My city in the Pacific Northwest is designed so that you can get practically anywhere in the city on foot or by bicycle. If you prefer, we have a great bus system too. I invite you to see some of the movies I have uploaded where I go on walks through different neighborhoods with just the ambient sounds of the neighborhood. Some are quiet and peaceful, while others are bustling and festive. All of Eugene, Oregon's neighborhoods are mixed-use, with nearly 40 miles (64 km) of bike paths and a similar amount of hiking trails, both in the city and in the "greenway" just outside of the city. As for Oregon itself, our entire coastline is public land and there is a hiking trail that follows the entire coast, known as the Oregon Coast Trail. There are similar trails along old railroad lines from Portland to the coast, and another one from the college town of Corvallis to the coast. Cheers!

@@mushroomsteve lucky for the 1% of Americans that live in Oregon I guess...

@@Blackadder75 But our state didn't get that way in a vacuum. Oregon specifically enacted policies -- such as urban growth boundaries, public beaches, etc. in the early 1970's. It was a forward-looking policy choice that prevented us from going the way of most other parts of the US. I hope that other states can now look to what we have accomplished and use it as a model for their own urban development. Car-centric development was a choice in itself. With channels like Not Just BIkes and others spreading awareness, we can hopefully soon make better choices.

@@mushroomsteve When I look at Eugene on Google maps streetview I barely see any bus lines or cycling lanes at all.

@@mushroomsteve Okay 99% then :)

' Main street USA ' is nothing like the average main street in the real USA

yes indeed!

@@marvintpandroid2213 how so? Asks the ignorant european

@@marvintpandroid2213 Except that it was designed to specifically emulate old style of all the Main Streets that the country was built around. Those mostly got bulldozed.

There is a very interesting chapter in a book called "The geography of nowhere" where it talks more about this idea of the Main Street of Disneyland.

NEVER believe a light can protect you. ALWAYS check. I have seen people killed crossing streets and many close calls.

Pedestrians always have right of way

You forget when people try unknown streets and then give up and use tram lines instead.

This is really neat! Was this from a book or something, because I’d love to read it!

curious, I too would like to read more about this

So some people have comments that are auto-removed here -so how do we have a discussion about improving things while censorship and fascism rule the USA?

Wouldn't it have been so much cheaper to build those highways AROUND the cities?

That's what happens when you make GM secretary of War

And of course, as Global Heating intensifies, this impression of using a rover to traverse inhospitable wasteland between sealed environments will become more _literal._

Funny enough it looks like I envision communism, everything tailored to be as cheap and functional as possible. No culture.

Yea, and the "brands" of chains have been so diluted that its not even a brand anymore, they just build the same building and put a different logo on it.

Except in a few cities, like Manhattan, parts of Boston, parts of Philadelphia, etc...

That's one tiny thing I do actually appreciate about Apple. Have never and will never give them a red cent, but I appreciate how they often try to save the exterior and style of a building they use for their shops. For example the Apple store shown at 8:45, or the Apple Store on Leidseplein, Amsterdam. McDonalds weirdly enough does this too .. sometimes. For example, one in Haarlem is situated in a monumental corner building and still has all the old markings.

I think Apple Inc. has tried to maintain the buildings' identity when they move into older neighborhoods with their stores.

I would go insane living in a place like that honestly. I understand why Americans are so weird

There’s no history, and it feels fake

@@mnm5165 weird is an understatement

I know people see apartments, condos, and “missing middle” homes as copy/paste design. The difference, of course, is all the asphalt

Prewar uk (and presumably european) suburbs are nice because changing architectural styles give them a sense of place. A victorian gothic-revival street looks different to a street of regency townhouses.

Oh the irony of having to drive miles somewhere to... walk.

What.. what the... why did you even get flipped off for?

@@kentreed2011 Because they were "in the way".

I once decided I was going to walk to the nearest book store. Took me over two hours, each way. Luckily there were abandoned train tracks I could follow for about half of it. Way more pleasurable to walk there than anywhere else

@@kentreed2011 people in the US sometimes just do that if you're on the side of the road and walking when there's no sidewalk, basically "Fuck you, get a car asshole!" as if you couldn't possibly have anywhere to be without using a car to get there. (Edit: fixing grammar)

thats great! ive been car free for over 5 years now, and im absolutely loving it. i walk to the store, bike to work, and bus to visit my friends

Shame Virginia is so muggy

When you say Virginia I assume you mean northern Virginia. I live there too and can relate when you say that there is some pedestrian infrastructure. While not perfect, it is far better than other places I’ve visited in America. Along with the recent push toward expanding the metro lines (although the cost of parking makes it hard to justify financially if you want to ride the metro daily), I’m hopeful for the future of public transport in the D.C. metropolitan area. Edit: I would like to add that the description of the town you moved to is frighteningly similar to mine. I too have a farmers market that is open every Sunday all year round just beside a park with parallel rows of townhouses facing into the park on either side. At the further end of the park there is a large pond that is cupped by larger single family homes.

Designing Urban Places that Don't Suck

@@LavaCreeperPeople Yes, that's the title of the video, correct.

I live in Quebec city and seriously outside of the downtown's and Limoilou's districts, the city is a suburbs and car nightmare in so many places. But the situation is starting to change, with the project to build a streetcar like in Europe's cities and more bike lanes who take lanes from cars,

Ding ding ding, we've got a winner. Exactly my opinion when I describe a location here in Hamburg, Germany. Not streets, at least not predominantly, but places.

And the capacity of the street isn't any worse when it's 30km/h instead of 50km/h. I think it's even better to have slower speeds, you can experience that in traffic jams

@askuri_ I feel the same way with my city center

Jasper Alberta’s main street through town has a speed of 30 km/h. Its nice to walk along it and its not too loud even during the day when its busy. Now entitled drivers coming from the city dont always adhere to that limit (the lanes are too wide imo), but baby steps

Of which cities are you speaking? It stands out to me that t50 streets are always dead in Frankfurt where I live

​@@silassheriff7868was sind t50 Straßen, bitte?

Great! Check out the channel City Nerd for some good recommendations on where to live in the US.

@@NotJustBikes Oh heck yeah, we watch City Nerd and Strong Towns :)

Where did you end up?

@@NotJustBikes - haha-this-sucks-man.jpg

what city?? name please! if I have to move back to the US, looking for somewhere that has a real city vibe and not a car city vibe..

The more I think about this, the more this idea disturbs me. Growing up in central Europe, I never even considered how much public places contributed and continue to contribute to my life. This starts out with the enormous frequency of public playgrounds and parks with BBQ--areas. Only a very small portion of people in cities here have gardens or patios, so public BBQ-areas are your chance to have a family BBQ in summer and then stay at the park, play outside with kids etc. Then there are random hang-out areas that are not fit as play areas or for any dedicated activity except strolling and hanging out. You often have benches there that just require open space around them to be comfy. I wouldn't call these places parks, they are too small for that, but basically wide, tree-lined street centers that are meant to walk at leisure, sit down on the sides and exist outside without staring right into traffic. Of course there are parks. Small parks, big parks, any kind. As kids or teens you meet there to hang out with friends without being helicoptered by parents. Where I live this is likely to be the space where you drink your first beer (it's legal at 16 here), meet with your boy-/girlfriend before you are ready to introduce them to your parents and of course just every day hangout. As adults, this is basically what we use when we'd otherwise need a patio. Sure it's not as private as having your own backyard, but for many things that doesn't matter. You just want to hang out with some people outside, maybe play some Boule or Kubb or sit in the sun together. It's also space to work out in for many people (think running, yoga, cycling, bodyweight exercise etc.). And this isn't even touching on aspects like shopping streets. People just need outside areas to exist.

It's meant to make you live as a machine, not a human.

Indeed. We often hear about landlords rent gouging and abusing their residential tenants (which is something that should be heard about), but rarely how landlord gouging also negatively affects small businesses.

Great point. While Its great to get a Krispy Kreme, we need are losing the unique Donuts Plant/Shoppe and local places.

Vacancy taxes! Punish lack of use! And then remove building restrictions to decrease market rate rent.

it's happening all over the world. half my major citys cbd shops are empty

even some chain shops closed there during covid

I visited Croatia for the first time last year and Zagreb was my first stop. I really enjoyed it, especially going up in the hills and seeing the views down on the city.

I visited Zagreb twice this month and was disappointed in how few people use public transport (despite it being very cheap) and ride bikes (despite sidewalks being pretty wide). Also, the streets/roads are unnecessarily wide, with too many lanes dedicated to car traffic. Rijeka, where I'm from, is much more enjoyable with its narrower streets/roads, though it is also car-infested.

​​​@@BcroG11the public transport use lower is probably because its summer break (no school) aswell as lots of people having a vacation The bike lanes are unfortunately pretty scarce :/ It also depends from which side of the city youre from - all of the eastern side is terrible for the bikers. Western side is much better, though it also seems to have some chanllenges.

I think the type of tourist that goes to Croatia doesn't really care about culture and only cares about the ocean. Especially because citys probably don't cater to foreign monolinguals.

Have spent two months in Zagreb last autumn, loved the city, I found it very walkable with good public transport and lots to do. If anything the coast is totally overrated.

Would love to see European train infrastructure build up to make it convenient, and cheap, to travel across nations. It is definitely doable with the right set of priorities.

As soon as they get a high speed rail line between Beč and Agram running, I'll visit Croatia.

I think there is a key distinction between big, and sprawling. Tokyo is definitely big (or perhaps gargantuan would be a better word) but pretty much no matter where you go it’s dense with homes and businesses. Sprawl is what happens if there’s a lot of space taken up by inefficient land use. Think like parking lots, single family homes, and zoning that forces the places where people live to be faraway from places people want to be. Also having an incredible public transit system definitely helps bring everything closer together.

Japanese cities are great for streetview tourism. Definitely makes sense that they would be good for walking about.

That's because Tokyo never evolved as a planned/managed city, but "naturally" evolving over the centuries in a mostly hermetic culture. In such case, size doesn't really matter to the sense of place. Ancient city of Rome shares similar characteristics with its chaotic and dense layout, in a sharp contrast to the colonial settlements across the empire with their prescriptive rational organizations. Organic evolution and cultural preservation is what grows the charm of a place -- big or small.

@@code96roblox One of the worst cities in the world for sprawl and lacking places and nice flow is Auckland New Zealand

It's basically true, but it's a bit funny you chose that in particular since Ueno to Akihabara follows the route of Tokyo's "Main Street" which then connects straight into the old Nihombashi bridge which serves as the 0 km marker for the whole rest of the road system of the country. It's one of the few street names people actually know and use. =P

well... we also gotta remember the town and cities of the "old world" were what people could travel on foot or horses... not cars, not trains... those were just villages and towns in modern terms... then again Japanese just does certain thing better than the American (Western) minds... tho outside of Tokyo Metro Area it's basically just Japanese-nised Americanism (watch Abroad in Japan's Journey across Japan's 3 Series/ Season)

This is not a coincidence. Single family zoning became really popular in the early 20th century as a way to get around the court rulings against racial covenants. It has always been about isolation from the rest of the world.

You nailed it:) this was all intentionally done from top down government policies not architects!

Exactly, after moving to Canada I realized why mass shootings are common. I live in a city that is carbon copy of an average American city. Even with half million population it feels like a ghost town. If you work from home and have a car, you can live without every seeing a human.

Thank you. You explained the very real dilemma of Americans in just a few sentences. As a commenter below stated, this was the intent of the city planners and the government when creating these communities. They wanted to preserve physical and mental segregation through environmental planning.

This is an extremely cogent observation. Our suburbs are utterly alienating. No wonder we have so many mass shootings.

It probably is, problem is the elected officials that'd be signing off on it are scared of the entitled car drivers.

Until they get billions in lobby money from big motor company

Good news: these concepts are being taught in planning school (source: I am in planning school). If you want to learn more about placemaking, enclosure, etc. try reading Cities for People by Jan Gehl and The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch. I think that many planners are already aware of this stuff and are trying their best to reform cities for the better, it's often the politics that are holding things back.

@@reillycurran8508 My city removed parking minimums. For those that don't know, parking minimums are where the big government tells small businesses how big their parking lot needs to be without knowing anything about the business. A lot of car drivers came out and said that would mean there'd be no place for them to park! Thankfully, the council members had facts and logic to shut them down.

Even if they learned this, I don't think anything would change. An elected's main interest doesn't lie in improving living conditions for people, it's in being re-elected. As long as the average voter thinks that adding more roads is the best course of action, that is what the elected will do, even if they know it's bs.

And damn do some people resent the efforts to undo it, but I’m thankful that they’re trying. I grew up in North America, and moved over here over a decade ago now. When I was younger I said things like ‘I could never live in a city’ because my experience was with same-y looking cities, or dying Main St. I live in a walkable neighbourhood on the edge of City Zone 1 here, and I love it in part because it’s got more of a sense of place and being lived in, like an old small town. I hope they manage to bring that back to the parts of the city that have lost that feel.

They have a messy-as-hell public transportation system however.

How is the urban planning in the rest of Scotland? I don't see Scottish cities or towns featured much on urban planning channels and haven't had the opportunity to visit, but I've been curious

Do you have details of this case study please?

@@ddogg14 I was in Edinburgh recently and it is easy to get around by public transport but it’s a very small city, so it should be! The cycle lanes are poor so I biked on the roads. There’s a strong sense of place in the centre but start moving to adjoining areas, Livingstone etc, and you soon realise that good transport and public infra is not equally distributed. Which is a great shame as the centre of Edinburgh is a theme park while Livingstone is a liveable place. But still better than England where we’re governed by US-influenced subhumans who possess the US’ default twitch towards retrograde transport and urban planning policy.

Yeah, this always happens when I visit places. You realize not much interesting except for specific tourist spots.

I agree that population density is a big difference between most European large cities and North American ones but if I look at the evolution of the density in Paris across time I am not convinced that it is applicable on a finer scale. The population in the center of Paris has been decreasing since the mid 50's which could be attributed to the increase access to cars but it is still decreasing now despite more than 10 years of increased pressure to reduce car traffic in the center. I have seen the same trend in other large cities. (I think that these number of inhabitants are even overestimated in many countries due to the difference in taxation between the main and the secondary residence. At least true for France and the Netherlands.) It would be interesting to study the cause and effects of these changes.

Americans are just too fucking stupid.

you are sort of leading the horse to water. you've noticed PART of how thier mindsets work.

Maladapted survival skill. Works well when dealing with sidewalks and driving because of how stressful it is, so you have to tune it out. Doesn’t work in pedestrian-oriented areas, but it takes a while to unlearn survival skills like that

Americans spend thousands of dollars to go vacation in Europe or even just to Disney World. It's not like we don't have the instinctual like for good urban places. But too many of us ignore what could be better right in front of us because we've deluded ourselves that the American Dream is car dependent suburbia. It would take a lot for that cultural image to break and for the country to change.

@@machtmann2881 I wonder what happens when one day ALL the oil on the planet is gone. No more "gas" to fuel their cars. ^^

I had to do that one. My grandmother was Scottish. 😉

I dunno, I'm kind of torn about it. If you're not familiar with the place a place that uses a foreign script (like Greek or Chinese characters) then it's a bit confusing. Maybe include the English names for clarity?

@@debesys6306 Glasgow is "Glaschu" in Gaelic and Scotland is "Alba". Gaelic isn't spoken much outside the highlands and western isles, though. The people of the central belt speak Scots instead (and English), which evolved from the same precursor language that English did. The Scots word for Glasgow is Glesga.

except for Paris apparently...

​@@ShivamSPatel-is-on-fire Please tell me you're kidding.

I agree, I can personally attest to the Philippines as a car dependent hell. Spoiler alert, traffic is still ridiculous which is amplified by the density, and most don't even have their own cars, especially in poorer areas. 🙃

@@patricke825 We have the same problem with other countries where most people don't even own cars yet all of our infrastructure is for the few who can afford to own them. The public transportation potential would've been great, with our tricycles and jeepneys, we can connect everyone to any location if only our cities were designed with walkability, and bikability in mind, plus tricycle (for really short), jeepney (intra-city to inter-city, same with bus) metros, subways, and inter-city high speed rail as public transportation options.

@@asahiorbit4565 Jeepneys are a horrible public transportation device. I love to use public transportation, but can't get myself use these crowded, hot, uncomfortable vehicles that are still the most common way to move around in Metro Manila. The Philippine government announced they will modernize them back in 2017/18, yet five years later almost nothing was done.

Philippine urbanism: No culture No architecture Intense traffic Slums for the impoverish Speculation towers for the middle class Booming american suburbs in the countryside Chaotic and irritating public transportation system Extreme density with the narrowest roads and alleyways LOVE THE PHILIPPINES 👍☺️ [this is a command, not a request]

Are things getting better for the poor there?

BuT hOw WiLl I dRiVe My CaR tHrOuGh ThErE?! It'S nOt LiKe ThErE aRe OtHeR rOaDs I cAn UsE!

America is great for a holiday - had a fantastic time touring the tourist hotspots and visiting their beautiful nature. However, I'd never want to live there.

@@AnEnormousNerd I've been nearly exactly been 1 week in the states, and have 3 more planned. I'm staying with some friends, so I'm really getting the native experience (though my hosts do have a couple e-bikes, and do really prefer to not use their cars)

@@AnEnormousNerdI live in a suburb east of San Francisco and I’m inclined to agree with you 😅 The nature around me is indeed beautiful, but the area I actually have to conduct my daily life in leaves much to be desired. May I ask where you live?

Hell no

@@QiZFziG4 Bruh I would like to see a better infrastructure, besides it can greatly improve the environment, mental/physical health, make outside more pleasant, and walking, biking, and even taking a train is much better for your health both physical and mental. I would rather that than having to drive 24/7 shouting many curse words possible in a deserted isolated asphalt.

One of my professors actually played his video about streetcar suburbs in my urbanization class!

The planners know... really this video should be mandatory for voters!

⁠@@timmattle4730”hell no” is not the opening to an “open and vibrant conversation”. Keep it moving bozo

Taiwan is already so much better than USA in general. (With the caveat that some specific towns/cities in North America is fantastic). But yes, it does feel like cars and (somewhat uniquely to Taiwan) scooters are a bit too dominant in many areas. Like, scooters are both good and bad here.. they don’t take as much space so you can keep the cities more compact. (And thus quite walkable). But just today I was shocked about how fast they drive through otherwise very walkable streets in, say, Tamsui (it’s true everywhere but right there it was particularly striking because the streets looked safe to walk and cars were blocked from driving through). I would also say that many areas of Taiwan don’t have a great sense of “place” as they look like any other place in Taiwan. You can easily feel disoriented in Taipei. Still, every part of Taipei is very walkable and has great public transportation. So it’s not just cars. There’s more that goes into building a sense of “place”

Well, a lot of areas in Taipei, like Ximen and Xinyi are fine - I can totally remember it for what it is. Night markets, which is basically, large walkable area like Shihlin is also very memorable. It gets boring along Fuxing or Zhongxiao road, but when you walk along its huge pedestrian way (which is shared with bikes), you'll notice the changing facade, although they are boringly uniform. My favourite places is the same as Tokyo: Taipei's backalleys, where you'll find local shops and residential supermarket, find local groceries, food items, that is affordable, unique, and fascinating. You can find unrated food snack items, that can be hit or miss - but generally it is an experience that makes Taipei unique. It is nice to see that people still live only 5 minutes walk away from gigantic Fuxing mall or Taipei Central underground. A friend telling you to stand by at a busy Taipei cross road while he queued at "the best Chiate pineapple cake outlet" is just 15 minutes walk away from both your hotel and their residential address. It is amazing. You can't say the same with real Americanised car-crippled cities of Australia like Sydney, where I really lived for almost 2 years. A downtown area is really downtown, chock full of business properties that gets abandoned dead at night. Pitt street is alive during the day, but totally dead appocalyptic once it gets beyond 10 PM. While Eastwood is quite walkable, Epping - the seemingly "modern suburbia" is a combination between walkable and big box stores (e.g. Coles supermarket located on Beecroft road). Good luck if you live in somewhere like Marsfield - where every American-minded folks characterise being "car-isolated" or "fake rural area design" as "homey" - nothing but residential buildings that forces you to walk for at least 15-20 minutes to nearby activities.

I've only been to Taiwan once, but I found it VERY unfriendly towards pedestrians. There were no actual pavements/sidewalks, just a painted white line or nothing at all, and there were so many motorbikes and small cars parked everywhere that as a pedestrian I had to frequently step out into the main part of the road. Now this was just one small part of Taiwan, I'd still like to come back and explore more because I hear there are some wonderful cycle tours, particularly on the Eastern side of the island.

@@nbartlett6538 I don't know where you're from, but you also have to remember that psychology plays a massive, massive role. I'm American and would have probably felt the same way if I hadn't travelled much and went straight to Taiwan (or Vietnam, for a much more extreme example). Where are the sidewalks? There are vehicles everywhere, am I really expected to just step out into the road?!?! The answer is yes, you are, but the drivers are so much more conscious of pedestrians than in North America. In North America stepping out into a street, which is for cars, would get you killed quickly. In Taiwan, stepping out into a street is stepping into a mixed-use area for cars, bikes, scooters, and pedestrians. It feels unsafe because you (I'm guessing) have been conditioned to feel unsafe in such places, but it's far safer than you think.

​@@yohannessulistyo4025stayed in Songshan and found it to be very walkable.

Sadly you need build quite a lot of bike lines (or roads comfy enough to bike) before people start using them

You can't bike-lane your way into a livable city.

@@hardopinions True. It's not the bike lanes per se. It's the removal of car lanes that does it. Cars don't mix with bikes or pedestrians. When cars are around NOBODY will walk or bike.

Vancouver is 'ALL IN' on cars. For them it is about money and profit over livability.

@@wytrzeszczwytrzeszcz7739 This is true. Victoria did this and now a lot of people use the lanes on the main trails and the city is very cycleable

But the CDU will bring cars back again? I thought I read that

Yup the pedestrian/bike zone is gone, it’s open for car traffic again 💩

@@rickb3078 Sadly the cars will come back, since the previous city government (not CDU) did not provide proper reasoning for closing off the road to cars. Closure of streets towards cars is only allowed for safety reasons and controlling traffic, not for improving the city planning 😞

Konservatives love cars. Especially politicians who get money from car companies.

I just rewatched the video and saw that Not just Bikes had a note in the right bottom corner saying "RIP car-free Friedrichstraße :-(" nice attention to detail by him

How can that be when Rish! has working-class friends?

@@arabcadabra8863 not everyone has a grasp on the role their environment is playing on their own quality of life. even when people have experienced both good and bad environments, the question of why doesn't cross their mind

Hey at least Sadiq Khan is sticking to his guns and is expanding ULEZ. LTNs and improved cycling infrastructure has been great for London and it'll only continue to improve despite whatever the tories or Keir Starmer's diet tories think of it.

face palm emoji

What happens when there is no election for PM

The Arundel Mills Mall is so big that they have parking lot gang wars

I just looked up the process to getting traffic calmed on my street with a speed bump-emailing the planning commissioner, who sends out paper mail notifications to homeowners on my street, inviting them to a residential planning commission meeting in 2-6 weeks, whereupon 65% or more of the homeowners need to agree to the speed bump in order to authorize the speed bump. In the meantime, the streets on either side have speed bumps already and this is the only road without speed bumps, so everybody speeds like a demon along our street rather than going down another one. If not enough members show up physically/virtually and vote yea, they won’t do the speed bump. So at every step of the way, planning just this one calming speed bump on one street has to be almost entirely the responsibility of the residents all getting together, even though we all work and we all have different schedules and some of the residents on this street are renters and I don’t know who owns their properties. Maximum effort required of the citizenry, minimum responsibility for the city.

Watch Strong Towns then, not my channel. I've given up on Houston, they haven't.

@@calidawg510 What's bad in cherry picking your topics when you're a youtuber? You only have so much time to produce a video. At least if you're doing this next to your normal job. I like trains a lot. So if i'd start doing videos about train stations, i'd cherry-pick an interesting station over a very generic one somewhere in the suburbs.

Bulldose it and start over. But seriously, i think that would be very difficult. Both because it would mean bringing everything closer together creating huge abandoned areas inside cities. And because of the increased dencity the entire infrastructure that was build to deal with low density needs to be replaced. Like sewers, electricity and water and gas and stuff. And it would create havoc in property prices. Making most basicly worthless and some places to valuable. It requires loads of planning and regulation to build a replacement instead of growing something more densly organicly. Doing it at once would be wildly expensive, but doing it slowly would create half century long construction pits and makes it hard to plan ahead as everything is depending on eachother.

There was this guy called Oppenheimer, he invented the solution for Houston some time ago. A fairly good movie was made about him recently. You should watch.

If you interest is more in change than in design maybe also consider a political career. (Local) Law is a very big factor in why urban planners are not even allowed to make great places in many US cities.

Look at a city in the Netherlands, and you'll see their are parts of the city appointed to be for cars. It doesn't mean cars can't be used. It just means not everywhere or not everywhere at high speed.

another viewer from New Delhi! Yeah, Malviya Nagar is just one of many such places and markets in Delhi that really should not be ceding so much space to cars and parking. Tight streets are meant for pedestrians, yet you have people trying to jam their SUVs and sedans through every single day and it's crazy!

Most people sadly don't know what they want. Or at least their idea of what the solution is will never deliver the thing they actually want. In urban design a lot of things are innitialy not intuative. Like for solving congestion the answer obvioudly is always more roads. But that doesn't solve congestion at all and creates new problems on top of the old ones. Congestion is a problem of having to many cars on the road. Solving that problem is done by lowering the amount of cars on the road. Not providing more space for the to many cars. Or what people think is convenient rarely ends up convenient when implemented as it has to be implemented to service all, not just you. Like having a parking spot close to the store, for 1 person that would be convenient. But for all shoppers you end up with huge parking lots, ending up pushing shops far away from eachother, anding up pushing people into their car to hop between shops which ends up contributing massivly to the amount of cars on the road and congestion. Actual convenience is to be able to rapidly get to the place where all shops are close together, you can walk straight in without having to find a parkingspot somewhere far away, hop into the places you need to be and quickly get on transportation that drops you of close to home again. It saves at least half the time, don't have to think about much and don't have to pay attention to anything and while traveling you can actually do something else if you want. That is actual convenience.

@@nkg1190 I don't live in New Delhi anymore though. Now I live in Vasant Kunj which is in South West Delhi. But yeah, it's just a few kilometres away from my house.

@@abcdefgh1279 I think he changed it to say brick streets now. :)

Notice that he did that for all of the place names.

I wanted to mix it up a bit. My grandmother was Scottish.

Oh wow, I wondered where „Glaschu, Alba“ was, thanks for commenting on it! I‘ve actually been to Glasgow before! Now I am looking to find it again in the video.

7:02

​@@NotJustBikes huh, whereabouts in Scotland were they from?

lol you don't know how lucky you are to live there and not be trapped and secluded as a child/ teenager because you can't drive.

Likewise for me, living in such a place in the Pacific Northwest USA. Greetings.

How do you think I feel living in the Netherlands? 😄 This channel really opened my eyes about my own country and everything I take for granted. It honestly changed my life ^^

The worst part of living in a south-italian city is that it's exactly like the U.S. but whitout parking lots. I wanna emigrate to the Netherlands since i was 12, now I'm 13 and realized how much time I still have to wait in this hellscape.

Greetings from the south Radolfzell am Bodensee🙋‍♂️

But Europe too is huge and most of Europe is just forests and meadows. Europe could just build wider rather than dense if space really was a problem. Instead I believe the more likely reason for low density in the United States is early enthusiasm for cars and auto industry lobbying/bribes.

@jakub.kubicek Most European countries are way more densely populated than the US, let alone Canada. But also, there are, of course, historical reasons to build dense. Like the lack of cars, yes, but also for defensive purposes. Plus climate reasons, most South European cities were built dense to provide shade when air-conditioning was not yet available. These reasons and more cause European cities to be much more sustainable and naturally leads to enclosed public spaces as described in the video.

@@jakub.kubicek The auto industry's popularity and power were part of it, but as with many things about the US, it's the racism. The white majority wanted to avoid and live separately from a formerly-enslaved black underclass that they feared as a source of crime and depravity. Car-centric suburbia without transit access offered the white majority a means to do so; the auto industry merely exploited those already-existing fault lines. Basically, European attitude: "I want my countrymen to have access to good transportation options." US attitude: "I've got a car, why should my taxes pay for shiny trains for Those People?"

​@@Zalis116 Nail, meet hammer.

Older areas weren't like this. Space has nothing to do with it.

I'd be curious to know what part of Boston you live in that's being "revitalized". Also New England suburbs, although much more car dependent than ideal, are fundamentally built differently than suburbs in many other parts of the country. New England suburbs were small towns absorbed into the cultural and economic sphere of larger cities. Most NE suburbs at the very least have walkable downtowns/main streets, and many of them are genuinely walkable and have decent transit. (Ie Salem and Reading ma, Barrington and Bristol ri, or long island suburbs of NYC. They're far from perfect but nothing like San Diego suburbs

@@oaxtec765 I live in a “streetcar suburb” within Boston city limits where there used to be a lot of industrial land, which has since been fairly recently (past decade or so) been re-zoned as mixed-use residential. New 4-over-1 and buildings are adding hundreds of new units of housing to the area and creating places for human-scale businesses to open up. Bicycle infrastructure is (slowly) improving, and I see more and more families in bikes, kids in cargo bikes, and non-car transportation choices daily. It’s becoming a lovely place to live, if only we could build enough housing to make it affordable!

Jerma didnt see any of that as worthwhile huh💀💀

🤣

Big box stores and meds corporations are able to "wow" small town councils with promises of new employment and huge boost to city revenue. Sounds great. So they sign the deal. Until Walmart demands a tax incentive or else they'll go to the town next door instead, and oh by the way they'll need a dedicated traffic light at the entrance (@ about $500k per intersection). Oh and they actually only employ about 12 people full time everyone else is treated as disposable part time labor. Due to tax breaks for mega corps, and the increased demand on services (Walmart needs power, water, etc) cities often need to raise taxes, further hurting their residents. The icing on the cake is the 40+ acres of land dedicated to it and all the asphalt. Further entrenches car dependency. Further making residents poorer. Most of the profits from the big box store get funneled up to the corporate mothership out of state. Big box stores and mega corporations are a net drain on cities. One of the best things that would help keep small store competitive would be to remove mandatory parking requirements. In most cities you can only legally build what is essentially a big box store. No mom and pop store can afford 20 acres for parking lot. Remove parking requirements and cities will shrink, by having more businesses in the same amount space.

first time i have ever heard bosnia described positively..

​@@lurjiit's because Mostar is one of the handful of places worth visiting there. Most of Bosnia isn't much to write home about, although it has quite beautiful nature, it still pales in comparison to Croatia and Montenegro in that regard.

I've been in holidays in Mostar and indeed, it is a beatifiul place. The fact that the whole city is entrenched around a valley (which gives it an absolutely gorgeous look when you're approaching it) alongside the fact that many of its places are open to walk through makes this city absolutely great

Yeah, Outside of the homelessness and wannabe roadmen Glasgow is pretty nice

It would be interesting to see in 5 or 10 years how many orange-pilled viewers went on to pursue careers in planning, civil engineering, environmental studies, etc.

Try politics or media if you actually want to make a difference. Planning is the easy part

Glad McDonalds was bullied from city centers where I live by local businesses and mostly relegated to outskirts and malls.

The older part of Savannah is laid out as a grid. But it is the multiple squares that truely make that part of the city great. Cool oasis full of old oaks and shade.

What the fuck is FL and Ga?

@@Man-in-the-green flerovium and gallium my dude

also a Broward resident here. really anything that isn't south of I-195 is a car dependent hellhole. you simply can't live without a car if you live in Broward and Palm Beach counties. and FDOT is adding another lane to I-95 to add another lane to the express lanes. Florida is simply terrible If u don't live in Miami proper.

Seminole county goon here. I navigate exclusively via I4, they made it bigger and traffic still blows. Well not for me, I work nights, but if I leave late and don't hit OBT by 6:30, I'm fuckin hosed.

Same here, I began to learn Dutch a few months ago with longer-term plans to move to the Netherlands. By now I've visited a couple times since my sister lives and studies in Amsterdam and although not everything is perfect by their own standards, during each visit I had a hard time believing that I wasn't dreaming and how incredibly pleasant it feels to just be in Dutch places. Veel succes met je plannen!

Same here. I am hoping to visit the Netherlands next year with my family. My wife is still reluctant but said she was ok with the idea of moving there. It will be a few years though as we don't want to move until our dog passes away. I've been learning Dutch as well.

Guys we have a housing crisis here in the Netherlands. Also, a lot of refugees from wartorn places and places with no food would like to live here. Can you please just stay put and join a local version of Strong Towns in changing your own environment? Thank you.

Guys we have a housing crisis here in the Netherlands. Also, a lot of refugees from wartorn places and places with no food would like to live here. Can you please just stay put and join a local version of Strong Towns in changing your own environment? Thank you.

@@atropatene3596 I don't see the US changing much in the next 50 years in this regard. There are some pockets where there is progress, but those places have become pretty expensive. I understand some of the challenges facing the Netherlands right now. We will see where things are in a few years. I'm open to other parts of Europe too.

As a Mobilian, I did not expect to see my city mentioned in a comment on a Not Just Bikes video. 🤣

One of urbanism´s classics indeed.

Why just Eastern Europe, thats industrial zones and outskirt highway areas in all of Europe. They are all utilitarian that way cause nobody lives there.

Interesting that there is still demand for road expansions, since Taipei has one of the best public transportation networks in the Asia-Pacific.

@@ianhomerpura8937 yeah this is weird. Wouldn’t of ever expected that type of 1diotic project anywhere in East Asia 😂

@@ianhomerpura8937 Taipei does. But New Taipei is hit or miss and can be quite underserved. People are moving to the suburbs for cheaper houses because they're priced out of the city centre, but don't want to take the bus because they get stuck in traffic. Also, cars are seen as a status symbol. It's an expression of success. This isn't just Taipei, but my observations across East and Southeast Asia. Taipei housing prices are out of control and the rich live near the trains. People demand more roads because that's what they think will make their commute faster, and politicians are so afraid of getting voted out that they will oblige and place a bus stop that only is served a few times a day so that they don't get voted out. They're afraid of taking the first steps because drivers and motorcyclists are the majority even though it is better for everyone. Noise is also insane.

@@bababababababa6124 Overpasses are hugely common in East Asia. Taipei and New Taipei have many. Tokyo is full of them. Video ID if you are interested in the specific project I am complaining about: Qc80Ritw1uw

@MarcoGPUtuber same with the Philippines, instead of focusing in improving our current railways and metro networks, most of the government is somehow more focused in widening roads and adding more elevated highway eyesores in most areas. I honestly think it's just absurd for a rural province to have 4 ultra wide lanes that's basically a death wish to cross through in most roads. (Why would a quiet rural and simple provincial area need more than 2 lanes of road anyway?) I honestly wish they could expand our railway and metro networks to the other provinces as well because there is simply no option other than to take a bus and be stuck in traffic for hours or drive for hours and also be stuck at traffic. I really like riding our metro because of how efficient it is. It's funny to look at those cars stuck at crazy traffic for hours in the highway while riding the metro that's 10x faster than driving lmao