urbanism venting
at the moment it's about parking. arguing that one of our oldest inner-city neighborhoods should cut back on how many parking spaces new developments have because cars take up too much space while ignoring the fact that our transit system is focused on bringing suburban commuters to downtown.
I'm all in favor of limiting parking but let's start in the 'burbs.
urbanism venting
inner city residents aren't better off without parking if the inner city is a grocery desert. they're not better off without parking if their zoned high school is 5 miles away in a no-walk zone. they're not better off without parking if they work nights & weekends in a city whose transit system is virutally nonexistent nights & weekends
urbanism venting
I'd love to ban cars entirely in our downtown core. But I don't have to live there. I live 2 miles away, in an in-town neighborhood that was once a suburb, where I get to pretend I live a car-free lifestyle but I actually have a garage and a driveway and a car I rely on at night and on weekends and whenever I want something I can't get to on the very limited bike infrastructure available to me.
urbanism venting
@DrTCombs okay sure, but the problem isn't that some urbanists have fantasies, it's that geometry hates cars, and that we have a finite amount of space, and that the planet will kill us all if we don't quit cars, and that our government was/is constructed by racists. Forcing developers to provide parking is not doing anybody any favors, even in the short term. The inequity needs to be addressed, but it's far too easy/comfortable to (ab)use it to overlook non-drivers entirely.
urbanism venting
@enobacon context note that my current rant is unfolding in a town with very little available housing, huge gentrification pressures, and a very unsustainable suburban ethos.
there's a whole lot of low hanging fruit with respect to reducing car use that we refuse to pick because it might annoy /important white people who worked very hard to earn the right to live in exclusive neighborhoods/
urbanism venting
@enobacon I'm all for carrots and sticks, but it feels like we use the sticks in the lower income, historically black & brown communities and give the carrots to the enttitled white folk with the intergenerational wealth and then wonder why things don't get better.