Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto) 

@@tartrazine5 lmao, what does desegregation busing has anything to do with this? if anything increasing transport time (for any reason) for a student is counterproductive. i have always tried to stay within an hour of daily commute from studies, then from work. Because fuck that waste of time. i have shit to do, and some sleeping time to protect. every country has different housing issues, and while big ass houses are cool, they are expensive to live into. harder to keep warm with secondary sources when the grid goes off, when that is even feasible, they need more of everything to stay in shape. i hate the modern trend of 50 year fallout for housing. carpentry with metal joints, concrete prefabs or plywood walls. hell, i know "hippies" who build houses out of medieval technologies and are perfectly fine (code is respected, heat management is great, lighting is optimal, yadda, yadda). It makes no sense to me, that if i wanted to leave the urban center of my city, i just would not find a small house for two, or a single level split house and be forced out into suburbia, without any pleasant way to wander around by foot. that is assuredly against my freedom of choice.

@Cecilia Cole damn thats fucked, thats one of the highlights in my opinion of having a backyard, I got a peach and pear trees growing fresh fruits every year, along with some fresh tomatoes and bell peppers

the freedom of every house being the exact same. it really is ironic.

or the freedom to have to drive to be able to get anywhere. (instead of being restricted to the trash options of walking, cycling, driving, bus, metro, etc.)

Just shut the hell up already. A minimum building size is literally not a problem at all and doesn't mean there's no freedom.

😂😂😂 I live in Brazil, where small or big cities sometimes might not have a decent sewage system, but you can buy fresh bread in the morning everywhere within a short walk, and I still don't do it because I hate leaving the house hungry in the morning. I cannot IMAGINE the fresh taste of hell which is having to drive to get breakfast loool

I really don't get americans. I live in Brazil, little to none urban planning in my city, and I have 2 small markets, haircutter, bus stops, bakery, bars, all within 5 minutes walking distance. Larger markets, post services, clothing stores, gym, even a small clinic all within 10 minutes. Even when I lived in a favela it was common to see small stores every 2 or 3 blocks selling random things.

@@SrCoxas Riverdale is in Canada; this guy isn't American. I can't speak for all of America, but I live in a reasonably walkable suburb and I don't feel like people here aspire to move to a car-dependent suburb.

@@Loj84 You know what he meant. Canada follows an American model of city planning with a slight European twist.

@@ahmedzakikhan7639 The original comment was not about the planning itself. It was about people in Riverdale aspiring to live in a car-dependent suburb. I'm saying I don't think that's the case in America (at least the part of it that I live in).

@@Loj84 I am not sure if he is criticizing Riverdale in particular. Pretty sure there are suburbs like Riverdale in Washington DC.

Oh damn. I'm a life-long Floridian and never realized such neighborhoods existed here. I grew up in Orlando and went to college in Gainesville, so never really escaped the suburban sprawl. Sounds like a good future option though!

Which neighborhood do you live in, is it Springfield?

You still have time.

Riverside-Avondale, but Springfield (and San Marco and Murray Hill) would also fit the bill of a streetcar-style suburb.

@@AssBlasster Hey, University of Florida, going there right now. Gainesville is making an effort to be more bike friendly. 13th street and University Avenue have improved somewhat for bikes since Lauren Poe got elected Mayor.

You got it period. Of course, the earlier version of this was the big box store. We have a long history of fashioning suburbs around the big boxes.

Still using Amazon for a lot of stuff just because I I want to get a certain item (e.g. bought a knife set that "normal" stores won't stock) or because it can be cheaper at times (just because the land price is so high, it costs the store quite a bit for some larger items to stock, so either they don't stock it or up the price, e.g. a few weeks ago some dishwasher salt that was 0.7 EUR/kg on Amazon including delivery vs the store's 1.2 EUR/kg). Usually prefer finding a local store though, especially if they do delivery, most products I check local first or at least e.g. for a good knife set I checked for a German store.

What's odd about amazon vs shops is that for example I recently needed a new water pump for my washer. At the local repair shop they had the pump for 50 USD but amazon had it for 11 USD and it was the same exact branding. Free 2 day shipping as well, Not sure how Amazon does it but its murdering the small shops with ease.

@@SandersChicken lots of small shops just rip off people, since lots won't google it if they're going there. Always just shop around.

A limited selection at higher prices. If anything Amazon makes more sense in Europe as the US has megastores with huge selections, with good prices and we have SUV's to haul it all home. Online shopping in the US actually makes rural communities a good option for people looking for walkable towns. In the US we call them convenience stores and they usually are gas stations.

@@ButterfatFarms wow, would y'all just give it a rest already 🙄

@@ButterfatFarms well America is Always in everyones business it'll be hard to keep it out

I love car-dependent suburbia because it offers so much privacy and quiet. Sitting in the backyard during the day on a day-off weekday in july, when everyone is at work... ahhhh such PEACE.. Not a sound from anywhere, just the blue sky above, and treetops gently bowing back and forth, nothing but the quiet russle of leaves and the whispering swish of the warm breeze. A neighborhood car goes by maybe once an hour somewhere, maybe an occasional lawn mower, ..or a dog barking. But such PEACE overall.. AND PRIVACY. No need to go anywhere on vacation. The suburbs are the best place for a family to live. After you've known all the endless irritations of apartment or condo life, NEVER AGAIN.

It's also happening in LATAM in general, and so many places around the world, I love mixed use neighbourhoods hopefully we'll learn from places like Netherlands

Definitely good to have a pub closer to your home so you can walk home and beat your kids after getting drunk. If you have to drive, you either have to wait till the buzz is gone or risk killing yourself.

@@allan3364 true

There used to be a grocery store within reasonable walking distance of my house. It closed years ago and was recently demolished. The only other things I can tell are there are possible an insurance office and maybe a beauty place that might be closed. I see some other store fronts on the road but nothing in them which is depressing. At least there's a Coney Island I can walk to.

Well said. I live in car-dependent suburbia myself and do enjoy it actually, but it also got me to think about certain wastefulness.

One of the quirks of American culture is that the bartender would take away your car keys if you drink too much. I mean, what the hell? Who ever drive a car to a pub? That's one of those things - Americans really drive their cars to pubs and then they drive their cars back drunk, simply because there is no other option. I would never drive to a pub, because... why? I can walk there and walk back. I can take a bus and take night bus back. I could even get a taxi and pay something like 2-beers worth for a trip.

Yup. One of the largest in the world. Crazy.

@@NotJustBikes The only thing larger than that turned out to be the greed of automotive conglomerates :)

@@NotJustBikes Want to hear something truly great. Las Vegas have build a "subway" where you inter, call for a tesla and then get driven in a tunnel to one of the other stops. At max capacity it can handle 800 people a hour (thats 19k a day), in comparison the subway in New york transport 4.3 million pr day. Cars are truly so amasing......

@@NotJustBikes what took you soo long, jesus christ.

During that time housing in LA was also about 1/8th of its current cost after you adjust for inflation. To think, 70 years ago Los Angeles was both affordable and had mass transit.

It’s because the money says no

Car companies would lobby against it sadly

cLiMaTe EmErGeNcY.....wasn't climate change supposed to wipe out civilization by 2021 or smth man stfu

​@@squeedles_1943 and owners of gas stations or repair shops too; In a big road city you think in big cars(SUVs or Trucks) that make more consumption, are less useful(you think you need that size of car because of the size of the roads) and produces more CO2 than in a small road city where you think in small cars that produces less CO2 and you can choose go walk or ride a bicycle (car is almost the last option).

There's also an alternative to suburbia here in America. It is a thing called a town. Some towns even have discreet subsections called villages.

i live in a college town. like just down the street is a college campus. my town used to be its own town and still is but its also very connected to the rest of the city. but its definantly not the type of place you need a car to get around. the only thing preventing me from going places on my own before the age of like 11 or 12 was my mom being scared i would get kidnapped.

Same, live just down the road from the University of Kentucky, walkability is great. There's several pedestrian paths that connect schools to parks to nearby neighborhoods. I will say I don't enjoy walking to the store for groceries or something similar, that's where all the traffic is. But for just going for a walk/ride to enjoy the day, there's some really beautiful spots that are really safe/easy to get to on foot.

@@lookoutforchris Unfortunately, many 'towns' and 'villages' don't have access to certain modern amenities like proper high speed internet access. Most are too small for major ISPs to be willing to bother.

@@richskater also currently living in Lexington and I love the Kenwick, Ashland, Chevy Chase areas. thinking about maybe staying here longer than originally intended because my hometown of Raleigh NC is turning into a nightmare. But Lexington also has some terribly soul-crushing suburbs too, especially off Man O War and out near Masterson

Yes! Isn't this crazy? You would think that we should just mimic and copy what's actually popular and what works. Instead, we keep doing the same thing over and over.

I was just thinking about a similar situation here in Kansas City. Some of my favorite restaurants are in the Waldo area, which seems like a neat, walkable neighborhood. Unfortunately the houses are $300k - $500k and are smaller than the house I currently live in. Needing to double or triple my income to be able to walk to get a bento box feels pretty bad.

There's a wonderful little neighborhood in Denver like this--Bonnie Brae. The small lovely brick homes start at $1million. And yes, I drive there to walk around :(

It would be nice if cities did their streets/transportation system like the Netherlands and zoning like the Japanese. That would be amazing

Nobody’s building more Northsides because it’s illegal, because the American governmental system is fucking dumb as shit

British obesity levels are rising faster than the United States. Not as bad as the US but not good.

@@differentnumber3200 I find it funny that’s what you decided to respond too and not the many other points he made, we regulate our cities to be super unshakable but god forbid we regulate food manufacturing to be healthier, we Americans are fat, due to not only our politicians focusing on the wrong stuff but also our city walkability

@@muddywisconsin Maybe people should take accountability to eat less and not have the government do it for them. Also eating healthy here is super fucking expensive so low income areas tend to be effected. Also if your 500 pounds you can walk all you want if you don’t change your eating habits nothing will change.

@@differentnumber3200 It's funny how you contradict yourself. "Eating healthy? Do it yourself!" but at the same time "eating healthy is expensive here". So... people should take care of healthy food themselves, but they can't because they don't earn enough money to buy healthy food.

@@wohlhabendermanager I said maybe people should eat less😂 love how you left that out. You can eat like shit and still not be obese.

Its not subconscious if you just literally are far away from people

Gerrymandering is the major contributing factor to the divisiveness in America. Gerrymandering makes extreme candidates more likely over time because they don't have to appeal to the other side in order to win election. Those extreme agendas then become more common in DC. There's so much more than can be said about this but I think we're all aware of it by now.

This is not being dramatic, it's called by some "atomization" and it is absolutely real. It puts us in a mindset where every person is this self-contained, self-interested unit out to maximize their own benefits with no possible thoughts of community (other than ways the community might affect property values). If you had people forming social bonds and communities, before you know it you'd have people unionizing and demanding things that help the community, and we can't be having that. I don't think it's a coincidence that the diaspora to the (horrible car dependent) suburbs happened along the same timeline to de-industrialization and reduced labor militancy.

@@TheJohnreeves Very well thought out reply. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Thank you for finding the term for what I’m describing too 🤣

@@TheJohnreeves Pringles in a tube

You as 13 year old, are more important than the big box retailer. Let nobody tell you otherwise.

🙄😑 Typical argument. Total nonsense. 😫😫☹️🙁

I also biked to school in college. I would have to bike to the "bike highway" and the one left turn to get into the bike highway is not friendly to bikes at all. I have been almost hit turning left so many times by cars going +40 mi/hr in a neighborhood that I have given up biking there. May I remind you all that the a car going +40 mi/hr has an 80% chance of making one die on impact. I'm so sick of cars

@@mist0098 I just found this channel and it just keeps making me more and more depressed at what has been taken from us. OP's comment got me all nostalgic for riding my bike to school way back when. Now I wouldn't ride my bike anywhere around here because I've seen too much insanity on the roads.

Big box retailers are ok. Otherwise where will homeless driving Winnebago park ?

In small, rural towns everyone needs a vehicle anyway to go anywhere and get everything done. Public busses were never a socializing hub, not like the school bus, and pretending they are all wonderful when everywhere has incidents of groping and abuse and such (looking at Japan and NYC, both busses and subways)? Is that a symptom of having no other options or is it a lack of control? I don't know or care why, all I know is as a female I do not want to be victimized again. Either clean up the act or let us use our cars.

@@Undomaranel , I hear what you are saying, loud and clear. I have never lived through that, but I got enough of it on the school bus and in school. My mother spoke of what you’re referring to quite a bit in her day.. here in the states and abroad while my father served in the forces. We get conditioned. If people could show decency at all times, wouldn’t it be a wonderful world?….

Wow I can't wait to talk to people on the bus every day instead of getting there instantly in a car

@@Undomaranel Maybe the people living there shouldn't be as aggressive. Here with public transport if you have any condition or problem like 5-6 people will try to help you, and the city has like half a million people in it so it's not a small town (compared to other places in this country), and smaller towns with like 50k are even friendlier specially villages with like 1-5k people where everyone knows each other that is close by and greets everyone.

@@ItsMeHello555 Also to add to this, only the real dangerous places here are the places where no one is around, even when someone gets robbed (from experience) someone will come to help you and run after them. Basically our citizens are doing more job than the police. Which is sad in itself lmfao, but if you have people that were thought like this in the first place it's going to be safer to walk and take transport anyways.

Yeah I'm noy surprised, because this was the normal way that suburbs were built before the 1940s. They'd have access to a rapid transit line, like a streetcar, and they'd have all the things you need within walking distance with a nearby main street. We don't even need to copy Europe to have better suburbs, we just have to go back to what we were doing a century ago!

I also hate car-dependant suburbs! Imagine being forced to have only a single choise of driving a car which has windshield pillars obstructing my FOV!

Dunnes Stores opened a supermarket few years ago in the Newtown park avenue area of Blackrock in what was the Playright pub.

@@NotJustBikes Also Blame the American and Canadian Fire Brigades and their love for oversized appliances. What needs to happen is to bring back the old planning laws. That Semi D in Riverdale looks nicer than any car dependent house with single front doors. Where I live there are parks within walking distance, shops, pubs and cafes. You can do your weekly shop without a car. There is public transport as well.

Yeah. My grandma lived in east Portland, so my dad grew up in that area and my brother and I spent a lot of time in our summers there. Went out for a lot of walks with Grandma, I’d love to buy my own place in that corner of town if/when I can eventually afford it.

IKR, great video. I live in a big metropole but I come from a remote northern town where everything was turning to car centricity. Some users does not know how to behave online and just think their personal feeling are accounted for, in everything.

most people that shit on it are just angry they cant afford to live there

I grew up there and to be fair Vaughan is pretty expansive and has plenty of green/forested areas away from the concrete expanses. It's easy to cherrypick the area area the largest local movie theater and use it to represent the rest of the city I suppose

@@badhombre4683 Listen to his interview on the Strong Towns podcast. He didn't actually start out with any intent to educate. He wanted to get it all off his chest and help folks back home understand why he left. He explains in the interview too that when living in Toronto, they tried advocacy. His wife was on the board of Cycle Toronto. They left, because they didn't see substantive change ever coming. And he's right about that. I love his approach. It's liberating not to see him self-censor to cater to the feelings of snowflakes. If you feel that a better job needs to be done on the education, get a camera and take him on. For now, I think there's a real value in just showing Canadians and Americans how shitty our cities really are compared to the rest of the developed world.

it is especially since york regions public transit is a joke

...b.b.b.but if you allow 2 doors to the house, then maybe two families could share the house to lower their lifestyle costs, and that would attract... THOSE people! You know, who, wink, wink...

Cars are family members and need their own big doors for the car house.

Just build the other entrance as a garage door. Problem solved

Could you bypass it by building 1 front door enclosed porch, with letterboxes and behind it the two real front door entrances. ? (Like you have in NL with 'portiekflats', 3 story appartments around a stairwell with a street door entrance. )

Simple solution: use garage doors as main entrance.

I love car-dependent suburbia because it offers so much privacy and quiet. Sitting in the backyard during the day on a day-off weekday in july, when everyone is at work... ahhhh such PEACE.. Not a sound from anywhere, just the blue sky above, and treetops gently bowing back and forth, nothing but the quiet russle of leaves and the whispering swish of the warm breeze. A neighborhood car goes by maybe once an hour somewhere, maybe an occasional lawn mower, ..or a dog barking. But such PEACE overall.. AND PRIVACY. No need to go anywhere on vacation. The suburbs are the best place for a family to live. After you've known all the endless irritations of apartment or condo life, NEVER AGAIN.

This is pretty true. In my home city, we knew the neighbors who moved into that suburb at the same time as us, but never got to know new people as they moved in. Granted, I'm pretty much the opposite of social, and the only people I want to be in extended close contact with is immediate family, so I feel like I benefit from the lack of neighbor-contact. I just wish that America had a better mix of my type of wider-spaced suburbs (but with safer streets for walking, and some shops still within 15 minute walk), and this type of suburb for the folks that want it. Then everyone gets what they want. Will that happen? Who knows.

that's really really really really really normal in Toronto and likely(i think) anyplace that has squirrels if you didn't know

Thanks to this comment, yes I did :-)

yep, cute guy :D When there's no trees, squirrels gotta adapt

@@neil.simmons We have squirrels here in the netherlands, and they never run over electric lines.

@@neil.simmons Yeah, it’s truly nothing special. You just get used to it.

It breaks my heart as a young person looking to live in one of these neighborhoods.

So american like apple pie..hate the beautiful places where billions of humans would like to live. You are becoming the sad joke of the world.

@@10z20 I'm not a young person but it still breaks my heart because I want to live in a non car dependent suburb too.

@@tsz5868 Suburbia isnt the issue, it’s car dependence Yk how walkability is something they advertise when selling homes? People don’t hate suburbs We hate Car dependence

@@10z20 it is just "grass is greener on the other side" situation... in india, all suburbs are build like that netherland suburb.. and there are a lot of problems.. for first, netherland is cold, like really cold.. but a place like india or miami, where insects like mosquitoes thrive in dense neighborhoods... in the indian city Calcutta, riverdale type neighborhoods are cheap but awful to live.. whereas big spacious neighborhoods are desired and more healthy to live in...

Everyone assumes I want to move to Japan because I like anime or like thier food. Thats the bare minimum of why I want to go, I’m in love with their transportation systems and hate cars. So as an American that’s all I really want, to fucking be able to walk places.

@@jellyj220 not to mention a low amout of annoying people in public transport...

@@jellyj220 well yes but people there are also a bit depressing or maybe its just stuff i saw on the internet

@@parrotilol yeah it’s distressing to hear of stuff like that, but they have female only trains a lot more now

@@jellyj220 that’s exactly how I currently feel. Sure you trade culture, but I mean the lifestyle makes sense in terms of neighborhood connectedness

I was thinking the same thing.

My "video ideas" list is over 300 lines long now.

@@NotJustBikes Wow. But at least you're now more often able to say "I've talked about that in a previous video" :D

@@NotJustBikes Is it public? Can we vote? :D :p

@@thijsvandalsen2989 I vote to omit that line.:)

Daniel Azevedo Free to start a movement for change.

@@653j521 sure, as long as you're not a socialist or union leader.

@@rajahbitancor8960 not sure that lines up, though. I don't think the issue is not having unions, I think the issue is that the governments are putting in policies that don't allow flexibility or 'freedom'

Statism shouldn't be confused with capitalism vs socialism arguments and fights. governments love to regulate everything bc it gives them a raison d'être. And especially in the US, government has too much of a say so they often regulate stuff without a cause. Its the nature of all governing bodies and one thats very very hard to combat.

This video gave me a "this seems so much like a commieblock" feeling.

A lot of designers call those garage-centric suburbian homes "snout-houses" because with their two-bay garages out front and the rest of the dwelling set behind, they look a bit like a string of pigs poking their snouts pushed toward the street.

@@VolcanoEarth A garage should not be the centerpiece of a house

@@LilBoulevard Your nickname couldn’t be more yank. Ask yourself what came first: Houses, or the garage? I have a garage, but it’s not the first thing people see when they come and visit me. They see the front door that ‘welcomes’ them.

It's really funny. They make us have these huge yards and properties that we have to maintain and then we are so far away from everyone else that we really don't want to go outside.

Ikr? I live in a suburb in the Netherlands and it would be so weird not to be able to walk or cycle into town.

they've built a somewhat american-style suburb in my city in sweden, and it's jarring how soulless it looks compared to the rest of the city

It's crazy, but it was the only we knew. I literally didn't know there was an option outside of: farm-land rural, just-houses and yards suburbs, or the city-that-never-sleeps or showers or cares about people NYC urban.

I live in one. It is alien and dystopian

That’s the point. That the idea of the suburbs here in the United States has changed so much we forgot there was something before.

Yeah this channel is absolutely fascinating to me see how you got to where you have. Genuine question: is there a concept of a town or a village much in your country or is it just city or suburbs?

Same in Croatia

@@basoon From a Canadian perspective, for places that developed pre-WWII there are towns with main streets, shops with storefronts close to the street, that kind of thing. Although it's not uncommon that a good portion of the storefronts are unoccupied, and people shop at big box stores on the edge of town. Villages usually have a church (maybe still functioning, maybe not) and a building that clearly used to be a general store, but now is just a house. For places that developed post-WWII, it's basically just suburbs like in the video interspersed with strip malls and big box store developments. Look at a town like Ajax, Ontario on google maps and try to find where 'downtown' is... you won't find it!

Exactly right. Several of the "streetcar suburbs" actually started as towns in the 18th and 19th centuries and were absorbed by Toronto as it grew.

And it's not far from the University of Maryland! Yes, Greenbelt is cool. I like going to the Green Man festival. A lot of fun 😄

Nice! Great to see a local here!

Ayy I’m a UMD grad, I’m from Burtonsville not far from you at all!

Trust me, no one here wants it either. I live in a small town, but it’s still sprawled out over 10 miles for some forsaken reason. It’s impossible to do anything here without a car

Judging by the comments on this video, _plenty_ of Americans will happily live in car-dependent wastelands. They'll actively fight against any changes too

@@ryanscott6578 yes, and it is really sad.

@@ryanscott6578 yeah I am. I just don’t find the problem with car dependent places.

Because Americans rarely get exposed to the outside world and it’s ingrained in our culture that buying one of the shiny boxes on the un walkable desert road is the key to happiness

a country cant be against government control, people can be against governmnet control and most people in the US today are not against governmnet control and this is how corruption and tyranny prevents growth and progress by psychopaths with a gun.

The rich people don’t want government control, they want to be in control.

@@goodgoyim9459 yup! And don’t get me started on property taxes

@@goodgoyim9459 actually a significant portion of early US law was specifically about limiting the government's control.

@@garethbaus5471 actually, we arent living in early US law.

An easily operable public transportation system with minimized maintenance and operation costs? Don't be absurd

"They," will screw it up and cost us much of our tax money for a crappy autonomous rail system. Sounds like an interesting idea if it isn't planned by some unaccountable government official who never asks the locals about the plans.

@@CPFitzgerald I’m pretty sure the minimized maintenance costs come from the absurd price of developing an efficient yet predictable rail system that AI can effectively manage. Not to mention the huge undertaking of just closing access to the roads you want to install them on.

@@maxwellhesher1790 and i'm pretty sure he's being ironic.

Keep it simple. Let humans operate it

Just to circumvent zoning rules ? A great idea !

Lmao that'd probably work lol

That pretty much what the "New Urbanist" towns were. They would get a big plot of land in the middle of nowhere where there was no zoning and design a traditional town. I'll make a video about them some time.

@@NotJustBikes ooh! That sounds really interesting!

@@NotJustBikes I Haven't heard of this. So please do! :) Also, thx for the vid as always!

I'm 22 and only just about to get my license.. Mental illness prevented me from being able to adequately focus on the road. Funny how this completely isolated me at home and thus further postponed my chances of fixing myself.

I work with low income students in car dependent US. Any kind of car problem can disrupt their job training. The “cycle of poverty “ has a lot to do with transportation costs.

how the hell did it take a year? I get that you want to shop around for a good price but a fucking year of your life isn't worth saving 1200 bucks on a used car... now if your parents were just waiting on the right price for a 250k lambo I take it all back.

what's up with people only wanting cars. so many countries in the world have a large part of traffic being small motorcycles or scooters.

My first car was bad, didn't last that long and was expensive to maintain. I just went back to using my electric skateboard and bike.

Yup the future of humanity is bleak. Didn't expect such a reference here.

ayyy expanse reference

They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot. Wish that was my line but it's Joni Mitchell.

@@africkinamerican Cut all the trees, put 'm in a tree museum...

@@mourlyvold7655 Remember when you could pay a buck and a half just to see 'em? Inflation sucks.

I always found that firetrucks are the size of school busses, so why should that force streets to be wider? Especially seeing as in cities you should have hydrants everywhere so you don't need tankers to ferry water from a pond or river to a country home. (You still can have pump and ladder trucks but those can concievably be shrunk to pickup sizes if needed) As far as the lot and house sizes that were manded just WTF, i understand if you set a minimum separate of houses to prevent the spread of fire but mandating plots be and least a certain shape & size is 100% someone on a power trip. I could see something about don't make needlessly tiny plots bit that can be phrased as a plot must be 3ft wider than the main building and the main building must have the following list of basic amenities like a bathroom, electric service, kitchen, bedroom, ect so you don't have litteral sheds being sold. (Point is you can ensure actual normal houses and land plots without setting minimum sizes & dimensions)

@@jasonreed7522 Not just a power trip--as someone in real estate, I can promise you that person has invested in the area. Heard of Dave Chapelle?

@@jasonreed7522 I was told it was due to outriggers. Apparently fire trucks have legs that fold down to stabilize them when they are at a fire.

i wonder if its also for building materails.I'm really shocked by all the new buildings being made cheap. Even if the inteior is coated, eventually an all wood buidling in the middle of hot desert or florida will burn down pretty quick.

@@odess4sd4d Trucks that do get taller when deployed such as tillers, yes. The rest, not really.

The word you're looking for is "*regulators*" not "real estate developers." As pointed out in the video, it's literally illegal to build a nice suburb in many places. Even if someone slaps city planners in the face with a fish and shows them this video, it'd take years and years to undo the damage and they would be reluctant to change because they have constituencies who have banked on cities as they are (including many voters who don't know what they're missing in the first place).

@@danpro4519 absolutely man, you're right.

@@danpro4519 You’re right of course that the regulators are responsible for these bad policies. Developers and automobile companies certainly played a part as well, using lobbyists and campaign contributions to get the policies in place that benefit them.

@@beth721 I'm sure lobbying has played a role, especially at certain points in history; but it all really comes down to politics. The regulators are the gatekeepers, so the developers have no choice but to work around them and their rules. It's like playing a board game where one player gets to set up the map and essential rules: they get to decide who to grant favors to and how to shape the city in a foundational way. It's of course more convoluted than that, but that's the power dynamic.

@@danpro4519 The thing is, in the United States, corruption is legal (aka. Lobbying). Every law and regulation is made for profit, not for the people. Current North American city design was molded by auto makers, oil companies and real state speculators, or "developers".

I think, in this case we Europeans are all like the Dutch, who are fascinated that things like a bike path is a thing to even be remarked upon.

@@canuzzi Yes that's true! I am dutch and I was amazed when I discovered, by video's like these, that such things like biking and normal suburbs, were foreign concepts for many countries! Weird, for us it's just everyday life

It wouldn't be fascinating for someone in the NYC metro either, since that's commonplace.

I live in Alberta, Canada, and we have a ton of these neighbourhoods. One area that was only built about 15 years ago literally has no local commerce. It's a very big neighborhood and the closest shops are a gas station, a liquor store and a pizza place. But you have to walk through a Coulee and then walk over a very busy road. There is probably 10,000 people that live in the neighborhood. But this is not the worst case. We have another newer neighborhood that is right on the city limits, with farmland between it and the other communities of the city. You would have to walk about 3 miles just to get back to the suburbs of the city.

@@bubba842 Oh seems terrible to me

Our municipal election is this year. Look for candidates, or speak with them about what was said in this video. I live in Scarborough. It has a lot of potential. It sucks right now, but it could be great. Amsterdam use to suck. Now look at it.

WE NEED MORE STREETCAR SUBURBIA . ITS THE REAL SUBURBAN UTOPIA . NOT THAT FAKE SUBURB S**T.

Riverdale was a totally separate "village" before it was annexed/amalgamated/absorbed by a growing Toronto as the Don River served as a virtual wall physically separating the land and land use. It is extremely difficult to cross a river by horse drawn carriage and the streets were just unpaved dirt roads. Once the Prince Edward viaduct was built, the city's eastward expansion was no longer impeded by the natural boundary. Ever wonder why Main Street and the Main Street TTC Station is where it is when it's not Toronto's "main" street (ie Yonge Street)? Main Street used to be main street of the former town/village/hamlet (too lazy to look it up right now) with Riverdale being a West end suburb with manufacturing pushed to the city limits the same way it is now. The history of the former industrial area that is found around Carlaw and Dundas, now "South Riverdale" aka Leslieville, can still be seen in the built environment as this was home to the Colgate factory as well as Wrigley's Gum along with many garment manufacturers and printing presses There were two railway lines with their tracks crossing here to support the movement of raw materials into, and finished goods out of the area. One of those lines is still in use but the other has been decommissioned but is still partially intact and visible in lots that have yet to be redeveloped with rusty rails on wood beam ties resting in a bed of gravel or imprinted into odd building lots and angular buildings of new flatiron condo buildings and curved outer walls maximize the floorspace following the path and line of the former right of way. Place names speak of the past with Colgate Ave being a new street that runs through the former Colgate land, and the condos converted from the former factory buildings retain parts of their old building facades giving us the Wrigley Lofts, The Garment Lofts, and Printers Row to name just three. This is also why the stretch of Dundas St E between Jones St and Dagmar Ave (just east of Pape Ave) has only back fences and garage doors facing the street and why the street itself is not straight like Queen to the south or Gerrard to the north as you would expect from a city planning perspective . Dundas St was stitched together from many shorter roads. This particular section had the existing residential street extended to Pape and widened by demolishing the houses and garages on both sides of the street. The cross section from North to South would have been: Dagmar Avenue - house/garage - ** lane - garage/house - avenue - house/garage - lane** garage/house - Coady Ave. Everything between the two sets of double asterisks became Dundas St with only garage doors and fences rather than numbered houses as expected. I realize this is already super long but the rezoning from industrial to mixed use residential/commercial speaks to the point that we choose to create the rules to create the city we have: Regulations and Codes and Standards like usage zoning and sidewalk set backs can be changed IF we CHOOSE to change them. These "restrictions " that "prevent"/create suburban sprawl can be removed . You could build New Riverdale in the Vaughn Mills parking lot if zoning changes and regulations made that possible AS LONG as someone stepped up to lobby for and more importantly PAY FOR/invest for that to happen. It's possible to apply for zoning exemption on a case by case basis for you to open a sidewalk cafe in the ground floor of your McMansion IFF your neighbours do not object to cause of increased traffic, increased noise, etc if approved cause no one would walk to your cafe, they'd have to drive the "long way" ti the out of the way cafe... your cafe wouldn't generate any business and ultimately fail cause you can't compete with all the Timmies and Starbucks and McCafes.... That holds true in Riverdale now where many of the mom and pop shops no longer operate thanks to gentrification and now with COVID those that did survive might not make it through this pandemic, not with online ordering and home delivery no longer an expensive luxury but now the "new norm" and just the way things are. You can't build it because of existing regulations is only part of the story. Like everything in our capitalist economic system it comes down to money. You can build it if you change the regulations (which takes momey) to then build and maintain it (more money). There is no supply for something that has no demand. Buying a cookie cutter house in the suburbs cost way more than downtown but the PRICES don't reflect the real cost of suburban living. if you consider all the costs including commute time, car ownership and maintenance, as well as quality of life intangibles like access to entertainment, healthcare services, education, as well as cultural diversity and amenities we'd likely all live in the center of everything, so in Toronto say at Yonge and Bloor. but there's not enough supply and so the demand has priced us out... and why urban renewal and density intensification have become policy (so Cityplace/Liberty Villge or Eglinton Ave corridor in Toronto) are used to balance all the socio-economic factors that give rise to all the things that make up quality of life. One last thing. at 12:55 the building you show in Riverdale is a bit misleading as it does absolutely comply with the One Front Door on a house. You show a building with two semi-detached houses hence two front doors . Also the regulation is taken out of context as it pertains to the creation of a new "second suite" in an existing one unit building. The suite must be entirely separate so how is this possible? A door on the back wall or side wall of the building can be the front door of the second suite with the door on the front face being the front door of the primary/main unit. Or the building front door opens into a shared foyer with separate entrances to the separate units. There are plenty of newly built examples where the front street facing wall of a building has more than one door as in the case of a duplex (2 units in 1 building) or a triplex (3 in 1) But single family dwellings ie 1 unit that occupies the entire unit, in reality would never have two front doors, a double door sure, but what would be the point of having two separate doors? it offers no practical difference other than the visual aesthetic and hence the character of the streetscape exactly as you state but not necessarily with the sarcasm intended by your delivery.. As a true Riverdalian, having lived here all my life for all of my 46 years in the same house except for my first year where my family lived in a different house on the same street across from the other, as well as being an alumnus of Riverdale Collegiate, I want to thank you for highlighting my hood and sharing all the best bits and singing its praises for everyone in the world to know! and sorry for the extreme word count!... verbosity fuelled by passion and pride! Thanks again!

Just how the hell do you get home with two weeks worth of groceries without a car?

@@oldiron1223 Do you need three weeks worth of groceries done in one shopping trip? Especially when you have corner groceries stores on most blocks and nearby restaurants to eat at? As in its at the corner of your street. See you're stuck in that car based living mindset where everything is too far yet "close" enough to seem normal. So the concept of going on multiple shopping trips expecialy for groceries is a foreign concept . Like if the store is on the corner block do you really need a car? And for vehicle choices you could use a front basket on a bike like many European countries such as Italy France or the Netherlands do. If a basket doesn't work you could try one of those bike trailers. Or you could use a motorcycle with those storage boxes on the side or even microcar. (Essentialy a golf cart sized vehicle that unlike a golf cart is enclosed so you could use it in the rain.) Heck you don't even need a license to drive one of those. Or you could order groceries delivery like everyone is doing now thanks to covid. But you could still just drive . Those streets do have the space to allow driving but it will feel like driving thru a Costco parking lot on a Saturday except you will be driving on a "suburban" Street. So don't expect a free spot to park always being available. But hey apparently its more important to design transportation around just cars even tho its bad for businesses bad for residents and Expecialy bad for drivers.

Cannabis Testing Facility "Legalized THC enhanced Marijuana will be the next Pandamic and it is aimed directly at our youth" China laughs at the (too stoned to care) West !

That shockingly applies to a shitton of things happening in the US.

@@ImGonnaFudgeThatFish “shockingly”

And lawns use more pesticides/herbicides and fertilizer per acre than farms. Unless you're like me and don't bother.

Grass lawns are terrible in every way. They're more work than clover or yards with actual growth, they dry out because the grass is never allowed to grow, meaning they need a lot more water, and they offer almost nothing at all ecologically. Lawns do not contribute to nearly any ecosystems whatsoever. They're as useful as paving over the land with concrete.

@@CaeruleanWren The only thing going for them is that they actually absorb rain. Unlike concrete where it just runs off into a river and floods your neighbors basement.

And it causes a massive geese problem!

I can't eat it. Animals we eat don't eat it.

Americans want you Europeans to stop telling us Americans what's best for us. It's rude, pretentious and irrelevant what you people think. We fought a war to NOT be like you.

@@SerErryk He's not telling you what to do he is saying he feels sorry that you have to live in these terribly designed suburbs and cities.

@@SerErryk You fought a war with the whole of Europe? That's news to me.

@@SerErryk Shut up

@@SerErryk Calm down, we just think it's sad people who don't have a driver license or money to own a car can't move freely in your country.

"should be talked about in the news media" lmao No. Not even close. His entire channel is about him being butthurt about cars. Especially in this video. Theres always a few narcissistic lunatics that think the world would be better it was built according to their personal views. Theres a good reason cars rule the US - because cars are by far the most convenient and most luxurious form of travel. No sharing the same space with strangers that you wouldn't want anywhere near you otherwise, no sitting on dirty mass transit, no submitting to somebody else's schedule. And if cars weren't artificially kept down here in the EU, most people would drive their own cars too. This guy needs to move to the EU, get an average job, and lets see how fast he'll be running back to the US where you can afford a car easily.

@@DesertStateNevada He is against car dependancy, not cars per se. And cars aren't convenient for community - the more they are used, the bigger roads and parkings have to be, so costs of maintaining infrastructure get bigger to. There is also the problem of pollution.

@@anteveic327 Hes against cars, look at his other videos. Parking garages can be built, and so can highways. This creates more jobs in infrastructure. Most of the pollution comes from industry in cities, not cars. This isn't the 1960s.

especially if their skin color is brown or black.

@@davidburgess3882 literally stufu

@@joshr24 you mean figuratively because I'm not actually speaking... LMFAO!!

that's so sad honestly

sor3999 Maybe in his town but in mine some places have sidewalks and some do not due to price of putting one in, not racism. I don't know what kind of hole he lives in.

Yeah, I thought Vinexwijken were like suburbia hell, but then I saw that shot of his cousin's balcony, and well that is hell. Vinexwijken are heaven in comparison.

When i Google 'venix wijken' (venix-neighborhoods) i get a whole variety of different pictures. from most ugly to very nice neighborhoods. I think those most ugly ones are pre-war, looking at the architecture. We had to rebuild the country with cheap and simple materials. The more recent the neighborhoods became are the better they look. Still however, they all look like lazy and boring copy-paste work by the city planners.

@@2009heyhow There are no pre-war vinex-wijken, because they stem from the vinex nota from 1991. ("Vierde Nota Ruimtelijke Ordening Extra"; Fourth Memorandum on Extra Spacial Planning).

Ikr? Though I still think a lot of vinexwijken look rather soulless. Bright red bricks, green that still needs to grow... But at least you can still walk or bike to places

@@stefandebruijn2654 Yeah i mean, I'm just looking at the google images. So the search results are just not correct then.

1. voting in anyone from the two major parties won't work, they get tons of money from car manufacturers. 2. I've tried explaining this stuff to people I know, and nobody cares except for the few who are cool. Americans are complacent today. So IDK, if you find out anything that works please do it lol. Have a great day!

Pavements(Side walks) might be a good place to start. So many suburbs are built without pavements to walk on. A pavement would give them an option to at least walk somewhere. Making it safer for pedestrians to walk by giving them a zebra crossing, or something similar, would go a long way. Cheap, too. Just a bit of paint and a sign. . I'd say a small store within each of the suburbs would be next. Wouldn't even need to be a Store, Could be a Library, A park, or a café. Just giving people a place to walk to, Rather than drive. Enable walking, Improve safety of doing so, and give a reason to walk. That's all I can suggest :3

Return to small towns. Many are desperate for growth and investment. Many were once organically designed to be just what is being mentioned here. The problem is having jobs to support these places. The small farms are history. Mom and Pop stores are almost extinct due to the cost of everything and box stores being able to out-buy them. Factories and manufacturers closed mills and broke the towns. Don’t build new neighborhoods. Return to these towns that are desperate for regrowth and rebuild those economies. How? Good question.

I second working with small towns. I mentor a kid in a small farming town in California and it is crazy how relatively walkable everything is because there is so much mixed use development. Lots of apartment complexes next to small townhouses and some single family homes mixed in. The schools are within easy walking distance as are many of the stores, library, and a large park. Line it up with good public transport and bike trails and it would be truly an awesome place to live from a walk-ability standard. Plus the populations are small so you could easily work with leadership and community without (probably) dealing with the same pushback you might get in a bigger city or town with more NIMBYism.

​@@sophfro That's so surprising, I would think that a rural town would be impossible to get anywhere without a car.

Developers don't want public transit, because they worry it will bring people of lower economic status who can't afford cars. In the USA, using public transit is mostly viewed as a failing and not a virtue. The only exceptions are the cities with developed metro systems, but they are the exception and not the rule.

@@shadowtheimpure who wants the crime that the plebs will bring?

There is suburb transit in New Jersey. Or at least used to be. Haven’t lived there in almost 40 years.

@@shadowtheimpure it is true that stations do increase crime, but that doesnt mean you dont have collector routes

Let me have my cake and eat it too. No bakery/butcher will run a business in a suburb, where only garages are up front and only 10 homes are within walkable reach. You need a minimal density of population to run a small business without car parking lots. Look at the parking area of a big store. There the parking area itsself is restricted to be in walkable reach to the store entrance.

I used to live there and it was great. Now, I moved about a 2 km away and find I drive a lot more.

I happily reside in Toronto, and travel through Riverdale a lot. It is phenomenal ! I live in North York, a suburb in the GTA. I am 5 min walking distance to a bus stop with 4 or 5 different routes. It is very car centric, built after WW2, in fact my neighbourhood is just south of the ole CNC bicycle factory in Town and part of a WW2 airplane factory plot of land, now small war time housing. Lots of people cycle around, and there are more and more scooter style electric bikes on the road. I like it and love travelling further downtown to the older neighbourhoods in TO.

@@takentimes8903 That's fine! You get to have that opinion, and live in a place that you like. One of the main points in this video is that other people's preferences -- i.e., walkable suburbs with transit -- should also get to legally exist. And, an implied but not explicitly stated point is that we should rely (in part) on market forces to drive housing development: if Riverdale is prohibitively expensive *and* dense, maybe we should address that latent demand with a commensurate increase in supply.

It really is a great place to live. I used to live there. I'm in a south core condo now, immediately south of the heart of the finance district at the waterfront. Admittedly not as nice of a place to live in many ways. However, NJB's characterization of Riverdale as being unique in the city is misleading. There are plenty of mixed zone, streetcar suburb type neighbourhoods in Toronto- from High Park, to Queen West, to Parkdale, to the Annex, to King East, to the Beaches. Even some midtown parts of the city around Summerhill, St. Clair, Davisville and Eglinton have that same character. It's true though that those neighbourhoods can't get built in say, Richmond Hill or Vaughan.

if you think thats nice come live in the Beaches neighborhood

The classic rule of cinema. Show, don't tell. (You can probably turn most streetcar suburb streets into that with minimal effort and in the same space with space left over for a sidewalk.) :)

I know. It's very effective. Left me thinking for a bit.....

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Did you watch the video? More than half of the hellscapes shown are in Canada. As a Canadian, I can tell you 99.9% of the country is like this. Other than Riverdale, and a (very) few other neighbourhoods, Canada is exactly like America in this regard.

There's a whole neighbourhood in Hamburg where you can't enter with a car, the largest wheeled vehicle that can enter is a wheelbarrow, when I was visiting I actually saw a group of USA citicens asking "so... if they don't have cars, how do they come and go from work, the grocery store, etc?" ... The neighbourhood has tiny lanes where people bike or walk, it's like 5 mins from the train station and 10 mins from the ferry, my sister wanted to move there but the property prices were skyhigh.

The example from Orlando's suburbs looks like hell. Who even wants to live there?

I don't know which state/Bundesland you live in, but I can tell you Bavaria is one of the most car-dependent built places in Germany. It's very rural, but bus and rail connections are few and far between and are even gradually torn down. You don't get anywhere without a car in the countryside. After watching the video on stroads I realized that they also do this in my town. There's a big road that goes straight across the city and fulfils most criteria: straight road, narrow sidewalks, lots of intersections, high speeds and home exits that go right onto the road. And they're still building this way. The new bypass road has no bike lanes, although it would have been technically possible. I could go on, you hit my drift. Then again, here we consider it a nuisance, in the US it's normality.

@@echoplots8058 countryside's are a whole different topic. it's the countryside, of course it's rural. needing your car makes sense because there are fewer than average people living in small villages that are further away from each other

It is to sell more cars, more appliances, and more fuel.

"Capitalism".

@@toomaskotkas4467 yeah, everything the government does wrong is capitalism's fault. That's why East Germany was such a wonderful place to live and everyone from the West was trying to get there.

It's cultural and demand based. People in the US prefer single family homes in cookie cutter neighborhoods. What this RU-vidr is suggesting is America change to European culture which will never happen.

@@InternetWarriorQwer >people in US prefer cookie cutter houses Lol

Most suburban towns have buses come pick children up, and kids interact with other kids on the bus. It's not that much different than walking to school. It yields the same social development. Minus perhaps the having to figure out the directions on their own.

@@caldera11 we only have busses to force integration in the south and if you think riding a government bus provides the same social interaction and instills independence then you're a moron.

Actually, the irony is that american do travel abroad to Europe and romanticise it. Yet they go back home and do the complete opposite. All in the name of freedom? Lol

Come to my country then! We're third world country which is kinda the Mishmash of car dependent society but most of the population lives in close proximity in a bunch of populace pocket, no strict zoning, and wide roads only exist as bypass highway instead of the standard in suburbs. Our living cost is cheap, though with the usual drawbacks of 3rd world country. But because we're tropical, were mostly green country with a lot of forest and trees 🌴🌴🌴. I've been in several countries but still the best place to live is my home country, which is Indonesia btw.

@@muhwyndham Our country makes it difficult and expensive to leave. They can't let us have that freedom because we'd use it to create exoduses, which would force the federal government to change if they wanted us to stay. If the lower classes don't stay, the rulers have no one to exploit and must themselves labor. This scares them because they are so effete that they've become incapable of sustaining themselves by their own efforts. And so they keep us from leaving. Welcome to the USA, where the freedom is an illusion and the poor pay to sustain the system that keeps them poor.

@@CannaCJ No, it's fucking easy to move being from usa, most countries accept us citizens easier than the refugees

Same

Change is possible, and is happening in some US cities. Get involved with groups that are trying to change things, like Strong Towns. People do have power if they use it.

You'd be the one punished if you were late though...

@@bsimulator yeah, Cities Skylines is amazing. You can choose different styles, and European is one if them, plus there are a ton of mods that help make the game better. Check out City Planner Plays and see his mod list, he has some essentials and even made modlists on the steam workshop

You guys maybe want to check out the channel of Strictoaster. He used to build really detailed and beautiful cities. There are many other channels like his, but I think Strictoaster a good place to start and then let the algorithm lead you around. He has a series where he designed a European city as well, it's called Nydal.

@@lonestarr1490 thanks, I'll subscribe now!

Lobby your local politicians for more liveable cities.

Become a city planner, *fix this broken world*

It's very real, alright. I live in a suburb myself. It's rather depressing-looking, but thankfully my city isn't too large (~80,000 people), so I can still bike places if I risk my life a little and deal with huge roads.

It's not just that there's places you can't walk. It's the norm in most places here.

@@jonransdell Where are you literally unable to walk, besides gated communities and interstates?

Walking was associated with poverty before the obesity epidemic.

​@@tartrazine5 The dependence of Americans on clothes dryers is another weird thing. You all seem to have forgotten that clothes can dry in the air.

Yea but Riverdale isn't viable for most Torontonians to live in. $1mil for an apartment, $2mil plus for a town house.

It’s not as hellish as you think

It's not hellish

Same here, I moved to Ontario from Hertfordshire U.K. and honestly it explains why I feel a little depressed, everything is so far apart even the ppl

@@Psuedo-Nim Pls don't cry 😢

You’re easily swayed by propaganda

sidewalks are not paid for by taxes but the owner of the property so are you going to buy the sidewalk for the property owner

@@brucenadeau2172 Sidewalks are infrastructure for public use, it's insane for it not to be paid for by the government.

Toronto is extremely expensive for no reason. I moved to the city beside Toronto (Mississauga) for cheaper home prices, but I wouldn't afford anything in the Greater Toronto Area if I was to buy a new home in this modern age. High foreign investors, high immigration, and an overall will for Canadians to spend huge sums on property has made is expensive to live.

@@sm3675 We need to build more.

Ya that'd be nice, I rent in a west-end Toronto neighbourhood that's similar to Riverdale and homes shot past the $1 mil mark in the past couple years. Even the car-dependent suburbs in Canada are insanely expensive these days. There is opportunity to rent in nice places in Toronto but owning is out of the question for a lot of first-time home buyers.

I live on the other side of Toronto, in a place called Parkdale. It's not nearly as rich as Riverdale, but a similar streetcar suburb. All of Toronto is crazy expensive, but since I haven't owned a car in years, I can just afford to rent here. It all depends on what you're after here. 2 or 3 cars, huge house, massive yard. Hellscape Vaughan. Bike and Transit pass, small townhouse or apartment, no car, no yard and walk everywhere; Parkdale. I bet the average cost of living is similar for both scenarios..( Forget Riverdale, only rich people live there).

I've lived my whole life in North Carolina and it seems like home prices are gonna shoot through the roof in the city I was hoping to buy a home in within a year. Sure would be nice to develop the city with public transit at the center rather than the personal automobile.

I live in the Dominican Republic and here is exactly as you said it!

Yeah it really does suck here. Despite growing up with stroads and suburbs like this I’ve always thought it was an ugly hellscape. It’s a 15 minute drive to the nearest place to get any groceries.

As an American, I had the opposite cultural shock upon visiting a local convenience store in the French-side of Geneva. I expected the usual beer-convenience store with no natural food only to realize that they actually stocked fruits, vegs, eggs, and such...all within a 4 minute walk of my airbnb. Blew my mind at the time but a very welcomed thing on my trip.

@/k/onnoisseur that is the stupidest shit anyone has ever said

I hate it where I live. The closest convinence store is 1.5 miles away, and there is no sidewalk for most of the walk, if you decide to walk. It's absurd that I have to take my car EVERYWHERE.

What the hell is a head shop

I live in Surrey Canada and what you described is considered the normal

Just moved to a town like you described. It's glorious

YES

@@dustmybroom288 it sounds wonderful but cold!

my suburb seems to be a mix of what he considered hell and paradise. like there are schools and shops walking distance away, though it’s still a bit far. but it’s still easy to get to shops as since there’s sidewalks and bike paths leading everywhere.

Every since RU-vid let me upload my scripts as subtitles, I can do that. The previous ones were auto-generated. Though you will find all the places where I didn't perfectly stick to my script when recording. :)

@@NotJustBikes If you want to reach a bigger audience, you should add translations/subtitles to other languages. It can be machine translated from your English subs.

@@safe-keeper1042 that shows the ones who go above and beyond are rare and cognizant of this, ultra professional

12:48 “aesthetic”

@@KennethYimHomes 😂😂

+

I like how you didn't waste time, words, or energy in a futile attempt trying to describe "...that" :D

@@thijsvandalsen2989 bang on 🤣 honestly there's so much wrong with it I wouldn't know where to start

why would you not want your own car its your own personal space you can have your favorite temperature listening to you favorite music on your own scheduled and if you want being in Europe you could drive to london to china the tip of africa

@@imchris5000 I didn't read anything about someone not wanting his own car. Having a car is not an issue. Having to have a car is. There's lots of talk on this channel about liveable neighbourhoods and convenience. Sometimes the car is convenient. Sometimes your own legs. What's not convenient is having too few options.

there's actually many neighbourhoods like it in toronto. this video makes it seem kind of like it's the only one in the city. a good portion of the neighbourhoods downtown are like this.

I live here and it's great. :) Halloween is really fun for the kids.

there's also many neighborhoods in the US that look just like riverdale as well.

I know a few place that has everything like Riverdale, but they are far from being that nice. High taxes, high crime, closed businesses, and crumbling infrastructure. The increasing property values means higher taxes, which is using to maintain infrastructure. Which increases property values which will cause development growth. Develop will bring the big roads, malls, and mags stores.

Montreal my guy. I still have to drive to work though. I can easily just walk to stores and such though. And I’m a stones throw from the metro. Parking is a bitch tho, and I hate it since I have no choice but to take my car to work. Buying a motorcycle next year so at least 9 months of the year will be less of a headache.

I find the obsession with front lawn even weirder. Unless your front lawn/yard allows for a sort of “sit on your porch and watch the world pass by” lifestyle or is well sheltered from the street, I consider the front lawn far less practical than the backyard where you are probably exposed to less traffic and noise and can thus relax more in peace and out of public scrutiny. Lawns certainly have their place - and not only in the old “immaculate lawn as status symbol” weirdness of the 1950s. I remember playing football (sorry, soccer, for the yanks) on both the lawn of my parents and on those of my friends’. Ditto for other outdoors games that require less space than an actual field, but some open, green area, e.g. croquet. However, I always found the American 1950s style front lawn to be particularly weird and non functional, being generally unsuited for sports/games, far too unsheltered for relaxation and also an odd stylised monoculture of grass with, at most, a small flowerbed or decorative tree. It has always seemed a strange sort of “horticultural objet d’art”, rather than either a functional garden or a place of relaxation. In that sense, I guess it reminds me most of the strictly controlled and rigorously pruned baroque gardens with their formalised and mathematical symmetry.

What if they turned front lawns into gardens? (Remember all the Victory Gardens in the World Wars?)

Lawns aren’t that bad. The negative on American lawns is the use of weed killing chemicals , some of them carcinogenic. Once you are past that unpleasantness , there is the functional aspect of lawns ( backyards ) .... Some folks will use the space to grow food as in a patch garden. Some folks will want space for their dogs to roam. Some folks will throw a swimming pool or a above ground tub for the kids. Some will use so their toddlers have a playpen. Some will rather use for sunbathing Some will work in their golfing short game Most will use for weekend BBQs. Some will kill stress on their gardening prowess. Daddies will play a game of catch with their kids America ain’t Europe.

@@AntonioCostaRealEstate There's a difference between allowing for front lawns vs forcing everyone to have one. And there's also a reason why they're going away as well, they're an inefficient use of space where land is expensive.

@@aabb55777 One thing I plan to do in the future is helping people redesign their lawns to be more conscious of the environment. One thing you can of course do is replace it with a garden full of native plants or Xeriscaping plants to cut down on the water you use and attract pollinators. Another option is to replace your lawn with a blend of grass, micro clover, and other small trailing flowers. These blends may be a bit more expensive than a pure grass blend, but you end up saving money by not having to water them as often. and another point is that having a blend of plants that also flower helps to build more biodiversity and attract pollinators. I could write an essay on reasons to replace lawns with other things, but this is a youtube comment section and I want to get college credit for my work

Yup I have never liked having to drive 10+ miles to just go to the grocery store

Well an American would see that in an opposite view. Because if you depend on trains and buses to get around you aren’t truly free. You are at the mercy of the train/bus schedule. At least with a car you can go anywhere at anytime.

@@DontUputThatEvilOnMe I think it’s important to have in cities for the NPCs that don’t care. Will decrease car traffic and hopefully need less lanes.

@@javanjackson6918 Some places definitely need more alternative modes of transport and not more lanes on the freeway.

@@DontUputThatEvilOnMejust the idea that I *need* to own a car in order to have a regular life is just depressing. At worst it would only take me a 15 minute walk to get to a franchised convenience store and a few minute walk to a local one.

Yes, I always wonder about the accessibility of these types of areas. Not to say that the issue can't be accounted for, but it never seems to be discussed.

city pass code so that poeple did have to breath pollution from factorys

newsflash: there are people like you living in most of those samey houses. They want a nice house to live in too. Why the hell do you look at it as depressing for people to have freedom and privacy just because every house looks like a house? The alternative is living in a podlike apartment in a giant building, which looks even more miserable, or hearing people fucking around behind the wall in a townhouse constantly. How is that less depressing than living in your own house?

@@caldera11 Did you even watch the video

I know having sidewalks that are wide and well maintained enough to roll on can be really good for wheelchair users! Especially if they can't drive or afford a car. And there are other disabilities, like blindness or epilepsy(correct me if I'm wrong here) that make driving unsafe or impossible, but you can still walk yourself to the store. It's easier for some disabled people to be independent in walkable areas. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone though and there's never a one-size-fits-all solution for these things