@@biankakoettlitz6979 the greatest freedom in Germany and most of Europe is: you can walk any path, any field road and you don't have to worry about private property. And no, you won't get shot for setting food on their land.
What always looks to odd me (as a Swede) seeing American suburbs, are these big, empty lawns without any fences or hedges. It looks so deserted, it's doesn't look like actual homes, I don't see personality, color, life. Here the houses in the suburbs would have different colors, sizes and design, there would be a hedge or a picked fence around the property, and a lot of people people would have some fruit trees, some berry bushes, and rows of flowers, something that brings life to the place. 🏡🌼🌳🌹🌲 There would also be some outdoor seating area, what's the word...deck? There would be like bikes, trampolines, swingsets, sandboxes, playhouses, treehouses and so on, since most people living there have kids.
tons of american suburb homes have most of the things you mention, except for the fences, for some reason they don't feel the need to fence off their properties very often. Although I wouldn't say they are really rare, just not as universal as in europe
a deck or a porch is very common at least in the south where i lived for a one year. The other things you mentioned are usually in the backyard and not in the frontyard
That's also been my observation here in the US. One sees these new developments with houses that might have good curb appeal but the sides and rear are boring. These houses might have sliding glass doors 3 meters off the ground but without a deck because they couldn't afford to have one built and then remain that way for years. In other words except for some kids toys, maybe a swing set and a grill, there's no personality, nothing imaginative or permanent. There's this one very nice development near me where the houses are more like giant townhomes, closer together with smaller lots, nice landscaping, sidewalks, and quiet streets. While they did include two very large grassy fields, one with a small playground, you almost never see any kids playing on them, who are probably all too busy looking at screens. They should've included a ball field and a basketball court but I think their target homebuyer's market was older folks.
One reason for this lack of "personality" could also be that people in the USA move much more often than here in Europe. It took quite a long time for our newly built house to feel like a home
But Europe is a nightmare for most Americans. Close housing, no escape from the neighbors? Forced to ride a train with hood knows who? No. There is a good reason the whites turned turn cities over the blacks in the USA, a really good reason that Europeans are incredibly naive of.
And that is so funny 😆 Walkable cities, free education, free school meals, universal healthcare, universal dental care, free university education, etc… Americans really hate those things 😱 Especially 1 month of paid holidays makes them scream socialism and run away 😱 🤣
@@verttikoo2052 Sure, how else are we going to exploit & criminalize the poor, the destitute, and those made homeless by medical bills, if we were to provide decent social services. Get real - the USA is the ultimate capitalist paradise. We don't have colonies we conquered. The ones who have earned the American Dream in the suburbs want to ensure that the undesirables stay where they belong - in the dense neighborhoods.
In the USA everything is centered around the cars. In Europe cars are at least slowed down by narrow and curving roads, even in new developments. So the children can walk or bike to the schools. And many new suburbs are dead ends so you can not drive through. It is a completely different approach.
European suburbs, new or old, are actually planned from a pedestrian’s point of view, which includes children and elderly people. They must be able to get to school or running errands on foot or by bicycle relatively safely. So cars are being slowed down on purpose and schools and grocery stores are often in walkable distance. In the USA, everything is car centered, so more often than not it’s impossible to walk to the next grocery store or school there.
Our estate has, at the back - furthest from the main road - a long building containing two levels/storeys of maisonettes. In front of them, (beyond a wide grassed area) is the access road* to the estate, including one 'speed hump' near the entrance. Then next to the access road at the other side, are three blocks of flats which stand _sideways on_ to the maisonettes block, and the main road. Each of these three buildings has a grassed area and footpath between them, plus each flat has both a narrow front and back garden. Each garden is gated, leading to the footpaths at the front, and the grassed areas at the back, - in addition to each back garden. There are trees and shrubbery within the grassed areas, which are edged with low wooden fences, to keep them neat. Nearly all of the gardens to each flat has a tall (around 6ft) wooden fence to contain them, with 'solid panels' at their base, and latticed at the top, so relatively neat, contained, yet allowing the estate to appear 'light and airy'. I like this estate. The three buildings containing flats are each only three storeys high, with two flats per storey. So, flats-wise, if you multiply two (flats) by three (storeys) by three (buildings) that's how many flats there are on this estate! Plus, the two storeys per maisonettes in the longer building at the back (I don't know how many individual maisonettes there are in that building, but it is a long-ish building, which starts at just past the entrance to the access road* - (& it* includes side-ways parking spaces) - which is a cul-de-sac*, and ends just past the end of the access road, beyond the perimeter of the furthest flat's block. So, it may easily hold the same amount of individual dwellings as the lower three buildings which contain the flats!) p.s. This estate contains each individual dwellings as being _Grade_II🥈_Listed_ due to it having won🥇 an architectural award for its original ('slightly curved') design and building in _1951_ following the 'Festival of Britain' held that year (by the husband & wife architects team of 'Maxwell & Frye' ...and the builder was 'Arup') 😏🏴❤️🇬🇧🙂🖖
@@klarasee806 Europeans love having their amenities within walking/biking distance - Americans do not. If Americans did, there would be a developer who would build such a place in a heartbeat so they could charge an arm & leg. However, Americans love their vehicles far too much to buy such properties. Every attempt to build such a community in the Florida or elsewhere has quickly evolved into a normal American suburb. City centers in the USA with mixed housing, retail, & other amenities are dying according to all reports. Americans vote with their wallets AGAINST dense neighborhoods.
@@gregorybiestek3431 Actually the mixed use neighbourhoods in the US are generally pretty expensive and sought after, the reason supply doesn't keep up with demand and investors aren't jumping on the chance to build more isn't because they don't want to but because in so much of the country there are very strict zoning laws which outlaw it.
@@JesusManera Many Americans are still voting with their money & moving OUT of dense areas into suburbs. Please google the Atlantic - April 2022; Brookings Institute July 2022; the Business Insider August 2023; & the study published by the University of Toronto Sept 2023. All of these and more state that people are leaving dense neighborhoods and moving to more suburban locations. The people doing the moving are 30-to-45-year-olds. Those zoning laws were not mandated by some faceless politicians or corporations, but rather at the demand and insistence of the local populace. It is the local PEOPLE who created the rules and who insist that they be kept to ensure that none of the undesirable people they moved away from lived near them.
I think we dont really have suburbs if were going by the USA version. We don't build areas with only houses because we dont have the usa zoning laws. The concept of not having a supermarket, chineese, kebab or indian place within a 5 minute walk is wild to me.
There are zoning laws but with other intentions. You can't build a factory or some shops which make noise or smells in a residential area. There may be rules the other way around, too ? I know areas where some metal shop is located for a long time. Now there are new apartement houses near to it. He can stay but he can't grow and no new metal shop could open there.
@@reinhard8053 the other way around too... in industrial and commercial areas, you can't open a small retail shop, because they don;t want all sorts of customer traffic towards that area. But you could open a wholesale distribution center, because the area is already build for large trucks
I mean we have those beautiful Neubaugebiete in Germany. the newer and closer to a big city the better, but the ones planned between ~1960 - ~2010 to get 30k pop. cities towards 50k-100k are really carfocussed. the last one my parents lived in had almost no sidewalks, no crossings, major detours for pedestrian and invited drivers to tripple the speed limit. they moved because there was hardly enough pedestrian space to get a wheelchair from the front door to the parking lot. the ~10-15 yrs old suburb they're now in is way more pedestrian and kid friendly, even if there're still no shops in walking distance.
As others said, zoning laws obviously exist but for example, working at a syndic I find that often in say, inner city appartement buildings the rules are more or less "1 business at the ground floor." We have multiple barbers for example.
From my small development it's only 5 mins to stores and restaurants by car but to walk to most of them would be at least 20 mins on busy streets and might not include sidewalks.
I could live happily in my 20 000 inhabitants German subburb without ever needing a car or even leaving it. Why? It has got everything you need for a comfortable life like dozens of doctors, dentists,specialists, pharmacies, shops,a school with over 1 000 students, sports grounds,churches, a library, suprmarkets,butchers,bakeries and public transport. In summer there are concerts - I watched TOTO ( remember Africa?) and there's a farmer's market every Friday and a Christmas market in December. I only need to go to the actual city for the theater or clothes or the cinema etc. And the best thing is that it is surrounded by a forrest and there is a river and a stream and it is QUIET !
Yeah ... I live in one of the richest parts of Germany. What is the truth? I have no car and if I need to go to the doctor it is like a horror. Sometimes the train will come, sometimes not and nobody knows why, nobody writes it in the app or nobody says what happened - nothing. Dirty sits. The same with dirty buses... Sometimes they will come, sometimes not. Sometimes later, sometimes earlier. And Sunday come nothing. At 9 pm come nothing, you have to call if you want to go somewhere. Unbelievable 2 km I have to go to the shops, 1 km to the pharmacy . Around only the field, no forests, everything is closed or I have to pay if I would like to play something like tennis, basketball, football, or volleyball. Everything you have to pay. You can have jogging for free on the fields if you want. Worst country ever!
@@Nalesnik158 I could only speak for MY suburb ! I didn't claim it is like that everywhere in Germany !! And I still think there is a BIG difference between European and American suburbs no matter how bad you think your personal situation might ! I'd really like to know where there are " dirty buses" in a " rich part " of Germany! Trolling much ??
The same where I live here in Spain. Only those who live in very remote places in our geography live without having a doctor, a store or a school nearby.
Got stopped by the police in Anaheim for walking round the burbs with my two small children after our evening meal. My baby daughter was in a pram and the walk helped her fall asleep. Someone called the police as walking in the USA is considered suspect activity. And you wonder why obesity is normal. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
@@Teuwufel Stop being an idiot. Perhaps it happend once or something, but that is absolutely not an normal occurrence in any country, and not in the US either. Stupid shit happens, but it is not the norm.
@@patrickwoods2213 You need to get in touch with the OP. Maybe you could babysit for her and walk her kids around the burbs. Then you can tick it off your bucket list.
European concept is that everything is more mixed vertically. Cheap mass buildings are next to luxury villas. Shops are in same building as flats (shop pays rent for house and at night people guarding shop). USA is more flat horizontal design, each purpose has its own part of city (rich, poor, shopping, industrial, ..).
That doesn't seem fully accurate. Not everywhere. In big cities you obviously have quarters that are more so segregated into e.g. poor/mass-housing and upper-class/rich/family buildings or villa-type plots.
@@user-uv8hp4jh7k Lots of sometimes wasted space in my book. You're bound to your car and forced to traverse in it to basically anywhere if you're in suburbs or not living in a place like IDK NYC or so where public transit might be better developed, even if not necessarily pleasant. Without a car and not living in the right pace, I'd be screwed in the US. Here I can traverse whole regions, the nation or beyond it with ease. If I need to go shopping I can do so on foot.
In many European countries, local forests are seen as semi-communal spaces, in addition to parks and playgrounds, which also reduces the amount of huge private lawns that are unused 90% of the time.
Don't forget the insane HOA's which dictate what you can and cannot do with your house and lawn. That stuff is not gonna fly anywhere in Europe, yet they believe they're free in the USA...
As a Brit/European, the German suburbs look very much like ours. Newer suburbs are not always as good in terms of mixed buildings/shops/etc as the older ones, but you won't (thankfully) see anything like the US model. Here we have large parks and woodland in the suburbs, and millions of trees along streets. Good buses, trams, trains, traffic calming measures, speed bumps, 20mph zones especially near schools etc. I live in a city and am about 3.5miles from the centre. I have a woodland over the road with a stream, large garden, lots of mature trees all around and can see hills and farmland if I look south and it's not a posh area by any means. I never see anything like this in a US cityscape. Where are the parks, woodland, topography, winding roads, wildlife, rivers, streams, allotments, canals, trams, railways, buses, anything attractive...they are just missing completely.
@@cerebralcoitus It is called "American Ignorance" ! American Values today are fear, greed and bigotry ! Look at Trump, the unholyness in person... Americans even don't know what "communism" is. We don't have communism here in Germany - but you can stay in your little "America is the best-Bubble" and help destroy the origins of the US.
When I was a child, I spent more than half of my free time outdoors. In the area there were several natural gathering places for the kids, where they often went to meet friends or make new ones. We played "Indians and whites", "thieves and policemen", hide and seek, played in the sandbox or swung. Walked or took our bikes to the kiosk and bought some candy or went into the forest and climbed trees. All this seems to be difficult or impossible for American children. How do they spend their free time?
How would this be hard for American kids? I grew up playing a ton of games with the neighborhood kids in our massive yards. Most of are parents houses had pools too so we could play in them.
@@TheRockkickass It's less so about being able to play games and more-so to be able to practice independency personally. When we were children we'd be no-where near our houses for upwards of 6-7 hours sometimes and not a parent in sight. Being able to play in your backyard is fine, sure, but you're still entirely reliant on your parents for the space to do so. Hell if we wanted to go camping overnight in a nearby forest nobody would really bat an eye, we were fully trusted to take care of ourselves.
@@Lewtablewe did the same shit. I grew up with a Forrest in my back yard that was huge, we would take four wheelers and BB guns out there and would be gone all day. 4 10 year olds driving around on 4X4s and shooting shit is pretty independent if you ask me. And then I’m also 10 so it was nice to go back to my house and have my buddies use my giant pool and hot tub.
The most disturbing thing for me as German/european is that you dont have shops in your suburbs. This is so absurd for me. I lived in several larger geman cities and it was never a problem to find an apartment to have the next grocery in a distance of max 5 minute walk. Right now my next grocery is one block away - about 80 meters. I have a bakery 150 meters away - there is also some "fast" food restaurants like Italian pizzeria and Turkish "döner". They have good food and lots of tasty vegetarian stuff. Besides my grocery right next to my apartment there are FOUR further groceries all about 10-15 minute walk. Two are within a small "centre" where several further shops are directly together. Some are restaurants or Italian ice restaurants (really popular here). The bus stop is directly next to my house and the regional "S-Bahn" is 15 minutes walk or three bus stops away. Bus is coming 4 times per hour. I live now in a smaller town (40.000 people) next to a larger city (700.000 people) and with the S-Bahn I can be in the centre of the larger city within 20 minutes. The company I work for is available by one bus line that stops directly at. my house - 8 stations equal 13 minutes away and I am in my office. I definitely dont need a car - not at all. And btw - I dont have children but there are in many cities small parks with playgrounds for children. The apartment I lived til last year had a wonderful park where many parents and children were all the time. It was just a nice meeting place. Cause we have a lot immigrants I saw all kinds of folks there - arabs, east asian, african and of course also european looking people. Many are germans - some are not. This is really how I like my neighbourhood.
Yes. In England, my home is a 10 minute walk away from 3 parades of shops and 4 bus stops, and 20 minutes from 7 parades and 8 stops. Each bus (there are 4 routes) runs 8 times an hour.
@@TheRockkickass ah - oke - so many or even most americans in Suburbs could reach a grocery by a small walk? And restaurants? And meet there each other? Didnt know that. And obviously all those who make these videos dont know this either. Hmmmm...
@@BoothTheGrey why would we want to walk to a grocery store or wherever when we can just drive. I live in an area that’s very walkable and I still choose to drive everywhere
@@TheRockkickass You didnt answer my question. So for many or even most americans there is a grocery in a close range in Suburbs? That YOU YOURSELF live in such an area doesnt mean anything. There 330 mio americans and probably a third or even more live in in Suburbs of larger cities. So please. Just be honest. Try at least. Do you really KNOW that in most suburbs there are groceries and other shops, restaurants, etc you could reach by a walk? And to answer YOUR question: The reason to walk rather often - also for small allday shopping - probably is something many people seem to not be very familiar with: Health. Having several walks every day is really a good thing to support your health. Like eating an apple every day and dont eat to much sugar. And some other easy stuff. And of course using technology when its absolutely not necessary can be unhealthy. Besides your physical health there is also mental health that is really a good thing to be interested in. Do normal and easy things in your life. Dont use technology all the time. Have nice talks and nice walks. Have time frames without pressure of doing something but where you just can be laid back. If you can have a goal for a wolk (like shopping) its a good additional motivation. Etc etc. But probably it was a mistake to take your question seriously and it was just another troll BS, wasnt it?
You got that right, suburbs in Europe are often actually just small cities. When the cities grew over centuries, they kind of intermingled and grew together. Some cities were incorporated into others, while others were still far enough away to stay their own city, while basically touching other cities already. In Zurich for example, the city border seems kind of random. You could just drive down the road along the lakeside and without the sign telling you, you wouldn't notice that you just left the city of Zurich and entered a suburb. Houses still look similar, you're still very much in an urban environment.
I live near, and once lived in, one of the world's oldest planned suburbs in the World (Hampstead Garden Suburb, London). It is about the opposite to a US suburb. Most European suburbs share some or all of these: 1. Planned between 2 major roads with shops and restaurants all the way along them and with an underground train station at two corners. There are lots of bus stops and it was planned so no-one is more than a 5 minute walk from essential shops or 10 mins from access to pretty much anything. 2. Planned on the structure of a village with a centre hosting central resources such as churches, school, library, community centre etc. 3. There are parks with a few minute walk of anyone, with a park following a stream cutting through the centre of the suburb. 4. Roads within the suburb are intentionally narrow and winding to stop people driving too fast. 5. It was designed to have a mix of homes with detached houses, short terraces of small and medium houses and small (3 story) blocks of flats mixed together to produce a mixed community. Even large houses are narrow and close together, with the house close to the road (but may have a long back garden), this gives a 'village' feel and makes roads shorter are easier to walk. The real problem is that it has become a victim of its own success. and is so popular that even a 2 bedroom flat can cost half a million pounds.
In Germany, most villages, which are all so close to bigger towns and cities that you could call them suburbs, weren't planned. They simply 'happened' many hundreds of years ago. None of the modern civilization in the US is more than a few centuries old. This clip is comparing two utterly incomparable things .
@@bronwynsteck that’s not an argument at all. What hindered the us from emulating historical growth and planing the suburbs accordingly? Can’t the US brew beer because it is older then the US?
@@nonnadiona2659 older THAN, not older THEN. The German suburbs shown weren't newly planned ones. They were ones that just happened somewhere along the line when big properties were subdivided and blocks of flats were hastily built on every available square meter of ground and single-family homes were converted into multi-family homes as fast as possible. The basic layout of streets etc. wasn't changed much. And as to whether or not the Americans can brew beer - I don't drink the stuff, so I can't be the judge, but I suspect that many a German Braumeister would say they can't. And given the large open spaces in the US, any town planner who would even consider emulating the cramped conditions of your average German suburb would be out of his mind.
@@Big_Caesar1 Who - besides our politicians - says this? I think you wouldn't like it too, if we think americans think exactly like their politicans. Don't fall for that prejudice.
I live in a village in the Netherlands next to a big city, you could call it a suburb since most people here work in that city. Nearest supermarket is 2 minutes walking distance, snackbar (fast food) 3 minutes, a real restaurant 4 minutes walking, a garage 3 minutes the other way, hair dresser only 4 door on. The only thing missing for me is a hardware and electronics store, that would take a 5 minute drive by car in the city. Luckily most only shops have next day delivery if you order before 10pm so that's not a problem. We do not have zoning here, you can ask for a commercial license in the middle of a residential area and it is usually granted because it is very convenient for the people living there. Thanks for the video!
we do have restrictions, you couldn't open any commercial thing in your neighbourhood, just things that won't smell, make noise or in other ways disturb the peace and quiet. Example: those Flits Food delivery things that promise to deliver groceries in 10 minutes had to close down a lot because their operation was too disturbing. and to keep their promise they had to open tons of small shops all over the place
I think that for many here we now have less incentive to go out to stores close by or not, thanks to Amazon, Doordash, local food delivery and the like.
@@markdecker6190 Good point, but why pay an extra € 5 for delivery of a € 6 kebab if you can just take a nice short stroll in order to get it. Or just sit there on the terrace and have a chat with your neighbours.
@@Blackadder75 Absolutely true, I remember a carpenter workshop across the street from my elementary school in the 60s and the electric saw was extremely distracting during summer when the windows were open. That would certainly not be allowed anymore today, luckily there are restrictions.
@@ingeborgsvensson4896 When I was in need of some extra cash once I did DoorDash deliveries and you'd be surprised at how many people were willing to pay extra for it, even if it was a small order.
US suburbs are dormitories, European suburbs are neighbourhoods. When looking for a suburban house, I looked for facilities like bus or train services, schools, shops, and a decent pub. I don't mind if there's some social housing, or if my neighbours aren't all white British. US seem to prefer homogenous ghettos.
The USA was built on the philosophy of rugged individualism. That has instilled a go-it-alone, the hell-with-the-next-city culture and a majority of Americans are happy to go about their business having as little to do with their dense central cities as possible. In one aspect you are right - I and my black neighbors on either side of me absolutely want to keep out the undesirable trash from moving in, so all of us will CONTINUE to keep ANY dense, mixed-use development OUT of our suburb.
The irony is that doing a healthy mix of social classes and type of people can often prevent ghettos forming. I've been through German no-go areas in the middle of the night at and past mid-night. They are a (often literal) walk in the park compared to US Ghettos on average I dare say. Because even in our rougher areas - on average - there is some sort of mix or social policy that prevents it becoming worse. One example I can think of is you want to avoid putting specific migrants/immigrants/refugees who are also economically or socially 'weak' (struggling, at disadvantage, etc) all in one area in terms of housing and make incentives to spread them around. Many will behave/not be an issue. But for those who may be, you surely do not want to put them all in one area as the synergetic effects will then impact that area more massively than if you'd divide people and mix them around so they can better integrate into a mostly working social environment. In "ghettos", the negative effects multiply and make it worse for more than if you were more so in a socially cohesive and orderly environment, encouraging you to stick with that and not act out or (if in ghetto) be encouraged to act out because it's seen as normal. But simplified but you get my gist.
@@Unknown-ek1ox Americans absolutely get your gist, and sorry, but in most of the USA we also absolutely have our areas divided by economic stratification. If anything my black neighbors are even more anti-social mixing than I am. Both I and my black neighbors on either side of me put-up with terrible work-life balance jobs to make ourselves middle class just so we could move AWAY from those who had no desire to do anything but stay on the dole or commit crime. When areas of the central cities begin to revive, mixed-social neighborhoods get destroyed by the PEOPLE, despite government attempts to force social-mixed housing. Google "gentrification" to see what I mean.
I live in London, England and in a "suburb". It is a nice area and a great place to live with all sorts of people from all walks of life living together. . We have three types of public transport in easy reach, shops, doctors, hospital, opticians, churches, synagogues etc. You don't need to drive to get around. I am convinced that only mad people drive here or because they have to. The suburbs here are often more exciting than the middle of the city.
In Australia, the word "suburb" literally just means neighbourhood. Anywhere in a city that has a name on a map, even if it has 100+ storey skyscrapers (for example Southbank in Melbourne) or even no houses at all, is still a suburb. So the use of the word itself is very different. The middle suburbs of Melbourne I grew up in, and the inner suburbs where we're now raising our son, are alot more like the European suburbs. Walkable, mixed density, lots of public transport generally being built along train lines or tram routes, no uniformity at all. My small street has about 4 detached houses, 10 terrace/row houses, 10 blocks of flats (with 8-9 flats in each), a little park, and a larger apartment building above an Aldi supermarket at the end. The next street over has a large public housing tower, right opposite very expensive Victorian-era houses. So it's very socio-economically diverse. But unfortunately a lot of our newer outer suburbs look more like the US ones (except with better PT, most still having a train station). I don't know why we copy the bad US example instead of continuing to build more like the great older suburbs.
Ah, but the introduction of apartment buildings in Melbourne int the first zone is a new thing. It started about 20 years ago mate. Melbourne has gone through huge transformation. I lived in a first zone since I arrived in Melbourne 34 years ago. The only buildings in suburbs were house comission buildings. City center was only business district and department stores. There was nothing to do in the city after 6pm when we arived since everything was closed. Now it is different. Inter suburbs and city have great mixture of apartments block, town homes and detached houses, caffes bakaries and mini shops. But if you don't live near schools, you still have to take your kids to schools by car. If you don't live near sporting grounds, pools etc you still have to drive your kids everywhere. Australian suburbs are cities in themselves by just a sheer size of them. And only zone one suburbs have better transport. You still have to drive to train stations, if your don't live near them or tram stations or use busses to get to train stations. So it is not same as Europe. Melbourn has great restaurants and shops, street food trucks, but we still havilly depend on cars. And oh God, the outer suburbs are just as bad as in US. One thing Melbourne does well is incorporate nature into suburbs. There are many natural parks, walk and bike trails around the rivers and beach. But honestly I am sick of traffic congestion in Melbourne and around the first zone suburbs.
A cool thing in Germany is also, we mixed up sozial groups. It was really astablisht after the war. Nowadays it's going back, sadly. But it helpt a lot in growing together as a community.
I lived in a suburb of Stuttgart for a year. The local park was literally beside my apartment building- I would wake up to seeing squirrels and wild parrots outside my bedroom window. My partner's daughter had a 5 minute walk to her school, and supermarkets were a 10 to 15 minute walk. Doctors office close by also, restaurants and take aways, library...everything within walking or a short bike ride distance from home. The streets were tree lined as in the video and well kept. The local tram was just outside the park so getting into town was fast and easy. The only thing I didn't like was the air quality was not the best sometimes because the area is so industrialised. I will move back to Germany to where my partner is now, but much further out from that city to a small town where the air is much cleaner. There are still all the amenities, services, shops, public transport available within walking distance. Germany has done a fantastic job in planning their cities and towns to be less car dependent than the US and more accessible to everyone....even though they love cars there too.
Stuttgart is a special case even for Germany or European cities in general. Even mentioning to someone from the US who hasn't seen it that a big chunk of the city is in a valley is misleading. You have to know how small that valley and how steep the incline to the outside are. That's about the same like some people from the USA wondering how such a tiny country like Germany can be such an economic powerhouse. One detail behind the reasons is often forgotten. Germany has about 1/4 (yes, one quarter) of the entire population of the USA. Compare to the entirety of the USA the population density of some countries goes from astounding to insane.
Sounds like a real shithole place most Americans would love to move AWAY from. You European just do NOT understand that a vast majority of Americans, about 80% do NOT want to live in dense, mixed-used communities with lots of public transit! If more Americans wanted what was in Europe, developers would build it in a heartbeat. We prefer more open single use areas with nice roads between sections.
I know in the netherlands if they make plans to build a new neigbourghood they always take into account schools and a grocery store on a walking distance
A lot - though by far not all - European suburbs started out as their own little villages who eventually were swallowed up by the cities - meaning they have a small town center of their own. These suburbs often also have their own sense of community as a "town within the town". More, you couldn't make them totally car-centered if you wanted to, because the layout of at least the oldest part of the suburb predates cars and was never meant to accomodate them. Any solution will always have to be a compromise.
Yeah, our city with a population of 40,000 were 5 individual small towns which had grown together. Each "district" has still its own "town-center" and most of them their own Christmas markets each year.
Funfact from South Africa: After the Soccer world championship in Cape Town, they suddenly had a bus system. OHH we will suffer, cried the taxi drivers, all the people will take the bus. Today, the rich people from the suburbs take the bus, so to have time to read the Financial Times, keep their expensive cars safe at home. Tho poor people mostly still take the shared taxis, because it is cheaper for sharing with 5 to 10 others. Our tour guide told us this story and he lives there. You, be safe. Elmar from Germany
Hi Joel, we live in a village in northern Germany and I like that the houses haven`t been dismantled so much, but you still have your garden and space so that its not too cramped. There is a good relationship in our neighborhood and people help each other.
Most old or palatial houses and smaller in Germany were flattened in World War Two and were completely rebuilt, giving ample possibilities for excellent work following great design!
My home, Venice FL, was designed more like Europe in the 1920’s. It went bankrupt in the 30’ and did not recover until 60’s. Then it exploded with America style superb. At the turn of the century “New Urbanism” came into vogue. It is basically the European model. Groups in Venice helped bring back the original plan. We made it very bike friendly. Golf carts are very popular. I look at is EV’s where they are needed. It actually gets a lot of people who are against EV’s to buy one; please don’t tell them. Please come and visit, we also have some fantastic beaches. You can see a working model of an Americanized European suburb.
In Midages the standard europe home contained a house for multi generations, a garden for crops, an animal shelter, a pasture, a workshop, a storage. So the home could sustain itself. During the Industrialisation some things moved out, leaving a single house. But the people kept the tradition. So today most single houses contains some sort of garden, often a workshop to repair household items, and storage space, partial used as parking lots. We collect rain water to pour the plants, often use solar energy in combination with energy storage systems, and some are collecting bio waste on a compost. We plant tree for fruits in our garden and harvest vegetables in our glasshouse. Its basicly a diverse ecosystem for small animals.
In the US, they have HOAs and city codes which would ban most of the things you mention. For a country supposedly the Land of the Free, they do like to be regulated.
I live in southern Canada, and our suburbs are a unique mix of American and European influences. We have denser housing than typical US suburbs and lots of local shops and restaurants within a ten-minute walk. There are also plenty of dedicated bike and pedestrian paths, separate from major roads. I've also noticed more plazas with parking lots behind the shops, making it easier for people to walk around without worrying about cars. As for why suburbs exist despite this guys strong opinion, they were designed for a mix of reasons. Privacy was a big factor, but so was the idea of owning a home that could increase in value. When cars became popular and many jobs were located outside city centers, planners started developing sprawling suburbs. This way, people could work in industrial jobs and still come home to a nice, spacious house. Many people also liked the idea of cultural and social homogeneity, which was harder to find in cities, so they moved to the suburbs. This did lead to issues like redlining, but at the end of the day, the US has a mix of both sprawling and dense living options.
This is so important. Yes there is a problem but it can be solved. One thing is to vote blue 💙 in every level. Why? Biden wants to bring back the good old times when Americans had walking cities with tram service and buses and free healthcare for everyone etc. Biden wants to get the money away from the billionaires to benefit everyone. European way 👍 Greetings from 🇫🇮
For everyone's information - In January 2024 the city of Eastpointe, Michigan proposed a road diet to make a five-lane highway (2 in each direction plus a turn lane) into a three-lane road. This was to be the start to make the communities more like Europe. Approximately 75% of the populace, INCLUDING almost all the millennials & gen z attacked this plan. There were protests, threats of legal actions by businesses and letters & emails to the state highway dept. Finally on March 19, 2024 the city relented and voted to reverse its plans and signed a contract on March 31, 2024 to merely repair the five-lane highway to keep it as it is. Most of the people who forced this reversal are people of color and young working-class families. It seems they like things the way they are.
Agreed. If this a topic of interest for you "not just bikes" is a good channel to watch in general. He (as far as I know) is the one who coined the term "stroad"
@@AragonTigerseye Actually "Not Just Bikes" spreads a LOT of false information. Actually, in the USA, it is the suburbs with their spread-out housing & retail that pays MUCH higher taxes to keep the densely built central cities operating. The cities tax the money earned by non-residents, as well as a very good portion of our local road taxes. So, for your information I HAVE paid for 40 years to keep those stupid dense neighborhood communities going. Despite that I will STILL keep ANY dense mixed-use area from MY suburb.
I'm living in the suburbs of Berlin and Frankfurt am Main almost my whole life. I was born near Berlin, then moved to Rheinland-Pfalz and Hessen for 10 years and then came back to Brandenburg/Berlin 13 years ago. I never want to live in a big city, but always in the suburbs, cause you've all the goods like the S-Bahn, cinemas, theaters and all other events and bigger shopping spots reachable in 30 or 45 min, but without the bad things like constant traffic noise, places packed with too much people, trash etc. around my place to live. When I look out of my window, there is the historic city wall of my hometown and behind that is a meadow for horses and sheep's. So, I can go to a festival and enjoy being around people and having fun and then I go home and enjoy peace and quiet in the garden or enjoy a day at a nearby lake. Best of both worlds 😎
I really enjoy your thoughtful, inquiring videos as you open your eyes to other places and ways of doing things. One thing I would like to know about though is that in the suburbs you have all that land, but it is not used. I'm sure someone from the UK would be planting and growing vegetables, having a few chooks on that land, not to mention flower beds and shrubs. My local estate had an ethos when new of the fronts being open plan grass, as in the US, but over the years hedges walls and fences have been erected to enclose their precious spaces, and keep them clear from dog's mess, or other incursions from strangers.
Yep! The maker of the video is rather outspoken in his opinion! Correct, but quite black-white.... Sometimes you need a cold shower to wake up. In general, European suburbs are more walkable, divers, compact, which leaves open space outside the city.
The video shows pictures of a suburb in Leipzig in Germany which is the third largest city in East Germany I think (after Berlin and Dresden). Bigger towns and cities often expand by "absorbing" neighbouring villages and towns. That brings the advantage that there's some well established infrastructure there already. New suburbs and quarters are built by filling gaps between communities. Completely new suburbs built from scratch can have similar problems though - at least in Germany. Only quite large expansions will receive a kind of community centre with shops and offices. However, you'll never find area being so generously left "unused"(ie. used just for a lawn, a few brushes and trees only). Even streets and roads need to be more narrow here. Europe, and particularly Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux countries are densely populated - ground is just too expensive for that usually. Yet despite being more economic with using space urban development isn't without flaws and risks here too. Too much area is being used for single family homes. We're still building roads wherever we can in many regions, particularly in South Germany. Large shopping centres in peripherial areas and online shopping with quick delivery are putting more and more pressure on smaller shops downtown.
Living in a suburb but in a very densely populated area in NRW and I love the fact that it's somewhat idyllic here and I can go to the farmer to buy vegetables by bicycle if I wish but also go to big cities by tram or train within 15-30 minutes (depending on the city). And still we have a variety of supermarkets, restaurants and everything you need in daily life that I can just walk to from my home within 10 minutes.
in Italy until the 1980s, at least, the principle of decentralization existed, prohibiting the opening of new sales points too close to others with the same economic reason, thus encouraging traders to disperse throughout the city rather than all gathering in the city center . Now we are becoming Americanized, facilitating large-scale distribution and suffocating small and medium-sized traders. All the neighborhoods of my city had at least one theatre, a couple of single-hall cinemas, and various entertainment, sports and cultural venues; everything within walking distance. Now there are supermarkets in theaters and cinemas are multi-screen cinemas. Thus the money does not remain in the economic fabric of the city, circulating and creating social wealth, but goes to the few super-entrepreneurs who own the chain stores, who perhaps live in the Cayman Islands, and the city will never see a cent of the investment made by its citizens
IMHO, the point is not to make driving as slow as walking, the point is to develop the (infra-)structure of the city in a way to make driving optional. When I visit a city that is making driving actively hard, I do my best to leave as quickly as I can. In a city that is giving me options, I'll happily doodle around with a bike, an e-scooter, or public transportation. (I'm looking at you, Freiburg! If you live there and have everything you need, great. Visiting? Not so much...) Six months ago, I tried travelling by train to a training. If you travel to the training and then just back, it's probably great. If you extend your trip and need something other than business attire and/or leave the destination city center, good luck! Next trip will be by car again.
The channel he mentioned - Not Just Bikes, is top quality. A Canadian living in Amsterdam does deep dives into how other places are far better than what he was used to in N. American countries. Well worth dipping into.
Your suburbs look like something from black mirror, or a nightmare. Within a 10 minute walk from my house we have, the children's school, plus 2 others. 3 small shops, 3 supermarkets, 1 shopping centre, about 5 or 6 takeaways, a swimming pool, a park a doctors a dentist a cathedral, football pitches, a sports hall, a bowling green, a bowling alley, 2 different cinemas. I only bought my first car when I was 35 or 36
And European communities and suburbs look like horrible nightmares to most (85%) of Americans. Not only that, we VOTE to keep those kinds of European neighborhoods OUT of our communities.
I live in America and we have many suburbs that have walkable neighborhoods- where everything is closer together. It depends on the suburb, the city, and which part of the country you are in. Have you ever been to the US or do you go by what you only see in videos?
It's true that there will be variants in every country, but I don't think it's fair to pull up the OP for making a comment about what was seen in this video (which conforms to much of what is seen on US TV programmes) and asking if they are basing their comment only on what they have seen in the video. Of course they are. If this is a generalisation, or stereotype, then point it out, but don't criticise someone for not having seen US suburbs for themselves. After all, any of us could go to one place in America and say, "Yes, I have been," but that doesn't mean that we will know everything about US suburbs from one visit. Just as there are numerous stereotypes about the UK that we see repeated on US TV and films - most Americans will take them as being representative because they wouldn't have any experience to know any different. And, again, one good or bad experience cannot be completely informative. Nevertheless, it's human nature to go by first impressions.
@@patrickwoods2213 I get you, I never have been but also assumed that obviously you have more bad and better or good places with better zone mixing. It just seems that by default however you have policy that favors cold mundane suburbs that force you to have or use a car if you want to get anything done - in a lot of places.
I live in a suburb 7.5 miles from Manchester city centre. It's a ten minute walk to a big supermarket and other shops, doctors surgeries, cafes etc. Buses are every ten minutes into the city centre.
You know, I live downtown. By US standards it would BE a town, here it’s a big city. The kids from downstairs come up here freely, on their own, as does one of their cats. It’s like that :) Whereas there was that notjustbikes vid about a guy in Canada getting sued over letting his kids go to school on their own, using the bus, for being an irresponsible parent. Yeah, he got reported for it. Dystopian 1984 to us, good citizenship over there. George Orwell wasn’t done yet. A suburb where kids can’t or aren’t even allowed to play in the street is hell on earth.
I think the problem with America is that it's so big and the expansion of a city almost always happens in the void. When a city expands in Europe, it always comes across a small town, which is then incorporated as a suburb. Therefore, European suburbs always look much nicer than what urban planners created in America.
No, it goes beyond city planning. Yes, one problem is car centered city design with very wide roads, but also city codes that forbid creativity in the front garden....
That America is big has almost nothing to do with it. Yes it is partially true that in Europe old villages get incorporated into expanding cities, but it is also true that in Europe (which is also big if you hadn't noticed) entire neighborhoods and even cities get built in otherwise completely empty fields. I live in Zoetermeer, which is a new city that was built out of a tiny little village and farm fields since the 1960s. We also have cities like Lelystad and Almere which are built on literally completely empty, new land that we dumped into the sea. These cities and neighborhoods also have a structure like was described in the video, with safe roads for walking, quite high density, local supermarkets and restaurants and so on. Some neighborhoods built in the 60s and 70s do have a bit more of an american feel (slightly) but that is purely because carbrain is also a problem in Europe, especially at that time. Then if we talk about France or Spain, countries like that are for a large part totally empty.
As a European, I always loved the look of US suburbs. It wasn't until people pointed out how many suburbs are basically ''you just *live* here - there's nothing else to do what-so-ever'' that I understood why many people don't actually like living in the 'burbs all that much. Basically, I really love the space of US suburbs as I like my breathing room (which I currently do not have much of) but I don't like how purely car-focussed they seem to be. Mixed feelings about the idea of both. Somewhere in between would be pretty much awesome for me :p
In Australia the suburb I live in is surrounded by National Park/bushland and includes a little shopping centre and additional shops near the train station. Most of the suburbs seem to have their own shopping centres, doctors, dentists etc. We can drive, take a train or bus to the bigger Shopping Centre that is convenient for all the surrounding suburbs where you can get just about everything. The CBD (Central Business District) is where you go to the theatres for shows etc or to find that specialist shop. The US suburbs we see seem to be so empty of vegetation/trees which over here are encouraged as it contributes to the wildlife and air quality.
It's even difficult to refer to the term "suburb", because it's so different. Here those places are just independent towns, which have grown together with a larger city - and these towns also have grown to a city-like density, which automatically (!) leads to infrastructure.
Hy there from Leipzig ❤❤ Never owned a car in my 34 years of life. I go everywhere by bus, train, tram or bike. There are 5 different groceriestores in walking distance to my flat plus two parks and a forest. Not two cities are the same, every district here and every town in Germany has its unique style. thats why I often do trips by train to explore the old town centers of places like Erfurt, Weimar or Dresden. Oh and we have lots of Wildlife in our cities too. I just saw a beaver the other day at the river.
I live in a post war, northern English suburb. Four different bus routes within 5 mins. walk. I can walk to the town center in half an hour, a main line rail station on those bus routes or walk in 25 mins. My local park is 50m away. Four supermarkets within 10 mins. walk. 8 take ways as well. So am I envious of the USA? Guess.
A lot of green is private land. So yeah, it looks nice but you really cannot enjoy it as you cannot walk around in it. The European model is more to have actual community parks or recreational areas everybody can visit and keep the ground around housing to a modest dimension. This also has to to with the amount of available land area. But really if you build wide and with separated zoning you tend to become more car dependant.
ill be honest, ive watched alot of America vs europe, and the more i watch the less i want to see America, well there are some places.. also the other day in the radio i heard that danish travel companies advice danish people to not travel to America because with the gun law and amount of mass shooting and murders its been places on same list as countries at war 😆 crazy
I live in a seaside town Southern England & LOVE small town life. I've not long moved to a large new building estate on the outskirts & amenities will come in time, however the beach is a 25 min walk away with plenty of coffee shops, restaurants, deli's etc with two gorgeous parks en route, & a bus every 15 mins if you need to go to the town centre. If I'd walk around a usa suburb for 25 mins I'd probably get two houses down
In Norway, for a long time, neighborhoods with single-family homes were built outside the city centers, but many of these were built with rental options in the basement, so you got all kinds of people in the same neighborhood. Provision was also made for play areas, access to nature and grocery stores, schools and nurseries in large neighborhoods that were more than walking distance from the town centres. These neighborhoods may resemble American suburbs, but there was always a driving zone with a speed limit of 30 km/h and a bus connection. The plots are much smaller than in American neighbourhoods, so contact with the neighbors occurs naturally. Because of the low speed limit, children can play in the streets. In recent years, it has become more common to build low rise apartment buildings in these neighbourhoods. This can happen because construction companies buy up homes with larger properties in the same neighbourhoods. Often these are properties from old farms that sold land to the neighborhoods when they were built. In that way, the neighborhoods are densified. In the new low-rise blocks, provision is made for commercial activities in addition to housing, so bakeries, cafes, restaurants, pharmacies and the like can be established close to where people live. There will be more potential bus passengers, but at the same time the possibility is maintained for people to own and use cars from the neighbourhoods. The apartment buildings are usually built with parking facilities in the basement. The way Norwegian neighborhoods are developing can be transferred to American suburbs, but there must be someone pushing for the changes, as mentioned in the film. Because the properties in American neighborhoods are often large, apartment buildings can be built on the lot of one or two houses, especially if you lower the speed limit in the area around the building, so children can play in the streets.
USA zoning laws were not mandated by some faceless politicians, but rather at the demand and insistence of the local populace. It is the local PEOPLE who created the rules and who insist that they be kept and even made stronger too wanted to ensure that none of the undesirable people they moved away from lived near them so they limited the height, arrangement of each building as well as the number of families that could live there. It was the local PEOPLE who demanded and made sure that wide streets many times WITHOUT sidewalks were built, because it made their new homes less inviting to random people who walked instead of those who had enough money to buy vehicles.
The other difference between American and European suburbs is that in European suburbs, you know and are friendly with those who live around you. You meet each other walking or cycling or taking public transport. Americans are insular, not gregarious. They have big homes in large plots of land, you go everywhere in your car, not speaking to anyone who lives in your street.
Interesting. In Australia there is a lot of talk about creating 20 minute cities / neighbourhoods - 20 mins the time to walk to school, work, park, shops …
I am from Germany and I think Americans like the idea of the European suburb in theory but when given the choice most of them would rather live in a US-style suburb. Americans are not used to living very close to other people, adhering to a lot rules etc. And most of them will at some point have a tradional family with children which necessitates a car and a house. It is no fun living in a European style city with no car and in a small apartment with children. There are a few hip neighbourhoods in German cities where people live in the city center with children. But these neighbourhoods are very expensive and most people would not be able to afford a spacious apartment there.
And most of those overhead cables are for trams/streetcars, same as in the Netherlands (with the exception of Arnhem, where the overhead cables are for the trolleybuses).
I have realised that everywhere I have lived (12 different places) from my childhood to now in my seventies I have lived within easy walking distance of a shop where I can get essentials. I have lived in very nice places as well, not all in the UK, but Australia too. I now live in a village in the Cotswolds, not one of the Chocolate Box ones, but still delightful, and mine is one of the few which has a shop and schools, a dentist, a garage, a Chinese Takeaway, a hairdressers, a doctor's surgery and a pub where you can eat out in. They have all been under risk in the last years, due to Covid, Lockdown or low birth rate, but a new estate was built which was fought against but the plus side was it enabled all these facilities to survive. Other villages are more like dormitories for the wealthier people. People are railing against the idea being mooted of 15 minute cities but in a way that is what I live in. I'm not a prisoner, I can go elsewhere and often do, but I don't have to nip out for miles to get a pint of milk.
The entire concept of suburbs is alien to me. We don't have a lot of these type of living environments in the Netherlands. Transport to nearby cities and other municipalities is in general good by bicycle, car and public transport, and most facilities are close by anyway. The financial part of the US suburbs will kill them eventually, but it could take a long time.
There are some areas like suburbs here, but they need to have public transort connections or nobody would move there or they wouldn't be approved in the first time. Often smaller villages around big cities get integrated or act like a suburb. I live in such a village and I have some minutes to a bus station, 10mins to a S-Bahn or train station. 10mins by bike to the next supermarket.
I guess you have what I in the UK would call a suburb. It would be a district or area of a city with its own centre with some local shops and other facilities, surrounded by a residential area, with maybe a business park or industrial estate nearby.
@@katrinabryce You're right, but I personally never referred to these as a suburb, although if you look at the word, it's probably more accurate than what is being called a suburb in the US. Thank you, never thought about that.
Yea the difference is, the Netherlands is the size of Phoenix while the US is the third largest nation in the world, we have room to spread out and most Americans would rather have a huge house and yard
When I walk around my neighborhood in Germany, there are so many trees and flowers. We love flowers. In America, people can live in a big house, but there is no flowers in the yard. Why?
@@charlesunderwood6334 I saw a video yesterday, comparing UK to Central Europe. There are not as many private flats in UK, like the apartment building in this video. Suburbs in UK tend to mean semi-detached 1930s houses.
I live in Huddersfield UK. I Live, I suppose, in one of the closest suburbs to the town centre. My house was built in about 1850, the newest are just being built as I text this on Brownbelt land. Within a 10 minute walk I have: Access to a bus stop 100's of acres of fields for dog walking 1 fish and chip shop 1 kebab take away 1 Indian take away 2 hair dressers 1 Greengrocer A pharmacy The Dr's A bakery The supermarkets are, depending upon traffic, about 10 minutes drive away along with DiY trading estates. Just check Google maps. Huddersfield may be regarded as not the most salubrious place to live, and it's Town Centre would agree, but most of its suburbs are well suited for civilised living.
@@alansmithee8831 The easiest suburbs in London are far more mixed and the whole idea was to have a 'village' feel with richer and poorer people living together. Certainly since WW2 that has changed
@@charlesunderwood6334 For many of us outside London, it feels like a different country, since it is huge and not like a typical city layout. I grew up in Bradford, with two more cities within a few miles and many more about an hour drive away, plus lots of big towns, all with a centre and suburbs. London has as many people as all of them together, probably about the same as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
I immediately recognized the city of Leipzig (the area where I live) in the references he used. While he's mostly correct, there are still some suburban areas that have fallen off the map and are hard to get to or away from. Public transport isn't as dense everywhere and other conveniences like safe bicycle routes are also not always available. Also if you are into a specific sport you may still find yourself driving across town if a local sports club isn't offering training or doesn't have the necessary facilities and equipment.
the city i work ( not living )....you have suburbs there, you get everything in them...no need to leave it! here, the kids learn to ride a bike, to drive it for a long life.. in the USA you learn to drive a bike, so your parents can say you can do it, too!
The German suburb shown, is more like an ouskirt of a city. There are other suburns, where Mummy has to drive the kids, because things are not in a walkable distance and public transport is poor. The viedo generalizes and idealizes in a way, which is not true.
@@arnodobler1096It means he is biased. High odds that he had a reason for moving to an urban area, like sex availability, and is sneering at the suburbs for what it can’t give him.
"White flight" is a myth, there were many mixed neighbourhoods urban areas, full of working class black and white, all living together. The opportunity to purchase a home in the suburbs was denied black people up until the 1970s. Since emancipation white America, local, state and federal governments laws have been made to exclude black Americans. For example after world war II, the G I Bill built suburban towns for returning members of the armed forces. These houses were subsidised by the US government and low interest mortgages were given over 30 yeah periods. Written into the bill was a clause which excluded returning black members of the armed forces from buying these houses and it took the Supreme Court to overturned this. Only to have the builders include a clause in the covenants excluding black Americans again. And it wasn't until the 1970s fat black people could actually purchase homes anywhere. Only for the banks provide unfavourable loans to them, or slow down the process so that it was virtually impossible to get a mortgage. Not to mention the thousands of black Americans, who were attacked bombed and killed for buying houses in white suburbs. Read "The Color of Law", by Richard Rothstein and if your blood doesn't start boiling after reading the first chapter, then there is something wrong with you!
As a Swede myself, the American and European suburbs definitely are different to one another, however, one perk that the American suburbs has is that their houses is much bigger, and can have more things stockpiled in the garage etc. One more thing, if I had the money, I would definitely buy a property, and build a 2-story American Home (With Basement) with a 2-door garage as well.
@@wanneske1969 If you live in the Suburbs, you don't have 2-3 jobs, most people just have 1 that pays well enough to afford a home there. And there's also usually more than 1 person living in a home there, because most people will have a big family with 2-4 kids.
It's such a difference. Here in the Netherlands even in the planned suburbs which emerged from the 1920s onward there was and is always a place for a local shopping street or center, there are schools, there are children's playgrounds. Houses are closer together, but what is the advantage of the large yards in the US when people don't actually use them and only have a lawn? And houses in Europe are mostly better sound insulated and fire resistant from the outside so these aren't concerns about building houses as 2 family houses, terraced houses or medium rise buildings. Also it doesn't make sense why the streets in American suburbs are so wide, even when cars are parked on both sides there is enough space to speed trough with two full size trucks, creating danger and noise. In European suburbs the streets are often just wide enough to allow two cars to pass each other just and when cars are parked at the roadside you often have to stop in a gap between the parked cars to allow an oncoming car to pass, this forces drivers to keep their speed down and creates a safer and quieter environment to live in. The access roads leading to the suburbs are often planned in a way so that no trough traffic goes trough the neighbourhoods.
In a lot of Danish suburbs the neighbourhoods are also connected by walking and biking paths that makes a seperate network from the streets, so children can often bike or walk to school, sports and their friends without getting on or near a road.
Grew up in Asia, lived in Europe suburb and now in NA. City living was great in East Asia as it is safe and convenient but you won't get much peace if you want to rest in quietness. Europe seem to be the middle ground of the 2 polar opposite of way of life (East Asian and America), in terms of conveniences and safety.
Hey MoreJps, the suburb Leipzig that is mentioned in this video is my hometown. And I would say it's more of a city than a suburb, but we definitely have many suburbs around the city. It's pretty cool to have mostly a walk of a maximum of 10 minutes to a train station. But I personally prefer the bike cause the city is well constructured for it and it's still getting improvements. And as most cities in Germany it's really pedestrian friendly, that's why I can easily walk to my friends and enjoy walking with them in a park. So these are my experiences as a German living in Leipzig. I really like your videos, even these not about Germany, cause it's cool to gain more knowledge with you about the world :)
In Germany most people are renting small appartments with 500 square feet. They cannot afford much space. Also many people cannot afford cars to drive but instead have to rely on filthy, dangerous and unreliable public transportation. And if you have a car you have to park it outside on the cluttered street where it will certainly get damaged or scratched by pedestrians and other cars. American suburb homes are usually more spacious and you'll have a bigger lawn. Apparently suburbian areas are also much cleaner in America. The video also does cherry pick a lot. I live in Germany in a 430sf flat. Often I do have a hard time to find a parking spot. Public transportation is not viable for me because I would have to ride the tram, then switch to train and take a bus or two after to get to work. I would have to waste 5 hours a day on public transportation. A distance I can cover in 1.2 hours by car usually. I'll certainly move by next year and shorten the distance to my workplace but right now public transport is not an option for me. Yes, I would spend much less money because the tax payer pays for a lot of it already but I would lose so much time that it would become expensive in return as time is money and my life is more valuable to me than a couple hundred € a month.
I'm living in a suburb of Bern, Switzerland (Europe) and it's just like we saw in this video. You can go everywhere with public transport, the next stop is 2 or 3 minutes away from your home. Only if you want to transport some heavy stuff you need a car. If I need a car I can hire one very cheap. This is basically the case in every city in Switzerland (> 2000 people). A tram / cable car is only available in towns over 100'000 people, though.
I live in the Netherlands, in a residential area and on the other side of the road at the end of the neighborhood are offices, hardware stores, furniture stores, gyms, indoor playground and more companies. Because there are many trees and other plants, you can hardly see the buildings. During lunch hour I always see small groups of people who work in those offices taking a walk through my neighborhood. Because everyone knows that sitting at a desk all day is very bad for your health. Rain or shine they always take a walk here.
I live in an average german village, with 3.700 inhabitants. We have got a pharmacy, doctors, 3 dedicated bakeries, a butcher, a greengrocers shop (also selling fresh baked goods and some fresh sausage/meat), a flower/gardening shop and a small discounter, as well as 2 restaurants and a Döner bar. We have got 2 kindergarten and 1 primary school for our village (and host the middle school for the local community of 6 villages/11.000 inh. altogether). For recreation there is an open air pool in summer, the dual purpose sports hall of the middle school and little bit outside 2 open air soccer fields. We have got 1 train station, the next (2) towns are 15 minutes by local train in each direction, the next village is about 3-4 minutes by train or car, or 7 minutes by bike. At the next village there is 2 more (bigger) discounters, a supermarket, dedicated drug store, more doctors etc. if you need more, you will head for the town(s). The train is supposed to run every 30 min in each direction, at peak hours with an additional train, but sadly the schedule has a lot of hiccups. With the new „Germany ticket“ you can ride all (short distance) public transport in Germany for only 49 € ($ 52,50) / month.
I think Oulu in Finland has the best idea this far: in case bicycle way and street or road must intersect, it's *always* the car that gets "yield to everything" sign. Bicycles and pedestrians will always get priority. This is the underlying difference to the USA. In the states, cars have always the priority over everything else.
@@MikkoRantalainen yes, pedestrians always have the right of way unless they're doing something very unreasonable. the problem is that there's still not enough infrastructure built for walking or cycling in many places.
@@CoolDrifty I think it's only about setting priorities. Many places (both in the US and in Europe) have multi-lane roads for car and the city planners claim that there's no space for bicycle lanes or pedestrians. How about giving priority to bicycles and pedestrians similar how Oulu does it? Oulu basically implements the idea that private cars are required for accessibility only and if you have to use private car for accessibility, you will not be in hurry can can wait for bicycles and pedestrians everywhere. If that means that you only have car one lane and bicycles and pedestrians have 3, so be it. That would give clear push towards supporting something else but cars.
As a Brit I admit to feeling totally at home during my time in Germany regardless of the language difference. It just encouraged my efforts to become reasonably proficient at least in spoken German.
The transition towards less car dependent infrastructure and urban planning isn't impossible, it just takes dedication and time. People often look at the existing situation and figure it's impossible due to how much it would cost to do a complete overhaul, but it really doesn't have to happen all at once. Both infrastructure and real estate needs to be replaced sooner or later, and some of it needs to be replaced right now. That's where you start: when replacing that which needs to be replaced, you replace it with something better, until eventually everything is better than it is now. With that incremental approach, you will come a long way within two or three generations.
i think there are many oversimplifications here. the look of an european suburd depends on how old that part of the city is. in most european cities the prices of the houses in the downtown are rising constantly, so there is a tendency for younger people to buy houses outside of the center. this results in big housing projects in the backyards of large cities, but becuase this happens in a very large scale and very quickly, most of these newly built suburbs lack many basic ameneties (ie. doctor, kindergarten, local restaurants, shops etc.). in many cases the roads to these suburbs from the city center are narrow, the public transportation is not yet available everywhere and most of the people work far from their home, so they choose to commute by car, so there is not an urgent need for developing pedestrian-friendly shops and local entertainment, because the car is an easy choice for everyone. the parents of my wife live in such a suburb, and there only last year opened a shop which is open in weekends (and this suburb is 40 years old). an other big problem is the corruption. because there is a demand for these houses local politicians can make a big money if they "have a good relationship" towards building entrepreneurs. these kind of projects don't bother the already local people, not until the roads get crowded and the water services begin to falter, but this happens when the houses are already built, the politician enjoys their pension and no one can be held responsible.
I absolutely loved the walkable aspects of Germany. But still needed a car quite a bit as I traveled. I would have missed out on so much had I not had a car and needed to rely on public transportation. In the US, I live in a small suburb more on the rural side and it’s very lovely, peaceful, clean and safe. I do have a grocery store nearby that I can ride my bike to.
There are older suburbs like that in the USA, for example around pre-car cities like Boston, that were built with the density to support street car systems. However, they are rare and often very pricey since they have walkability, are scarce and have proximity to the city core. Sadly most of them wouldn't be allowed to be built under most current zoning regulations.
If they stuck a few schools and shops in the middle of some of these US suburbs, it would make life so much more convenient for the locals. I actually do sometimes like some things about the US suburbs. Until I realise how many of the things I've always taken for granted are missing.. Also, I don't like the idea of my kids getting arrested just for being out of the house.
There are downsides to suburbs on both continents so I suppose it’s about what you wish to prioritise; the freedom/need to be able to drive anywhere you wish or the freedom to be able to choose a different range of transport options even though each of those options have different limitations. Living in a relatively small, overcrowded island geographically forces you to compromise on where you can live and the kinds of buildings and social/commercial activities that may be happening right on your doorstep.
