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 agreed that cars are a problem and space is finite and we have to find alternatives yesterday
fantasy was maybe a bad word choice, but in a sense it is a fantasy that we can create equitable, sustainable cities by expecting those with the fewest alternatives available to them to make bigger sacrifices than the rest of us.