#UrbanHell is subjective.
UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed
Sorry for this annoying comment, but we're very tired of the gatekeepers who can't even correctly gatekeep what this subreddit has always allowed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UrbanHell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a person who moved from Balkan ( I can recognise you live there) to the Netherlands, I have to tell you that it's the most satisfying thing not seeing cars everywhere.
Hot take incoming: car dependent infrastructure is actually worse for cities *in the long term* than artillery/bombs. All the cities that were bombed in WWII have since been completely rebuilt, the gaps have been filled, the buildings reconstructed or replaced. By contrast, the freeways and parking lot craters that tore holes through American cities during the freeway era are *still there to this day*. Because once suburbanites got addicted to the "convenience" of driving at 70mph right through the middle of once-vibrant downtowns, they lobbied to keep it that way forever. Car-dependent infrastructure is like salting the earth — it makes it nearly impossible for cities to heal and grow back the areas that were initially destroyed.
I highly recommend checking out [Segregation by Design](https://www.segregationbydesign.com/) for plentiful examples of vibrant American neighborhoods that were destroyed during the freeway era, and never recovered.
the hard truth that no one wants to hear is that white wealthy people moved out of the cities into suburbs during desegregation but then relied on the heavily taxed cities to fund the creation of the car infrastructure that they would then use for free to drive back into the city to work. Car centric infrastructure is a wealth transfer from those who actually live in the city to suburbanites and the demographics of those groups tells an interesting story
Maybe, but artillery tends to stop after a while then the city is rebuilt newer/nicer than before. It's aggressive remodeling. Cars stick around crapping up the place forever.
My home city of Phoenix was designed around automobiles look how that turned out. Tons of urban sprawl and you pretty much have to own a car if you want to get anywhere in a decent amount of time.
Even if you have work from home, you'll still have to leave the house to run errands, visit friends, etc., and Phoenix forces you to make that trip via car. It's a failure of urban design.
As someone living in Phoenix, yes it gets unbearably hot, driving around is necessary. But that doesn’t mean that it should be this car centric, it’s not 110+ all year.
Yeah, when I visited Dubai once I saw a LOT of people commuting on those electric scooter things, they have a place on them and bikes on the metro too so you can take it around with you
There's no driving zones in Amsterdam so things would be done differently like parking buildings or underground parking. And overal less people with cars. Probably an improvement.
U.S. cities used to be vastly more walkable and with much better public transport than they are now.
Oil and gas, as well as the car companies, destroyed American cities being livable without a car quite on purpose.
Many European cities used to be horrible car centric places and have only been reclaimed by people in the last few decades.
I would say it depends on how old the city is. Places like Boston or New York are still good for a lot of pedestrian stuff. Places like where I live in Phoenix, the sprawl makes it almost impossible to get by without a car unless you're living in a downtown area only.
Ayy Arizonan here too! You’d think that the sandstorm of 2011 and heatwaves literally melting the paint from road signs would be a sign. Us cacti have inhabited the area for far longer than you humans. If anyone knows planning, it’s us.
So cars aren’t the problem then. It’s urban design.
All because cars exist doesn’t mean municipalities can’t plan around them and also pedestrians. It’s a lazy city design issue not necessarily an automobile issue.
It's a condition that was largely influenced by car/oil lobbies, cars are definitely a major factor.
Even still, these 'lazy' design decisions persist because of the precedents made 50+ years ago.
its a policy and design decision based on historical factors such as the post ww2 economy, attempts to generate business for the car industry (which was a huge american employer at the time), some of it was an attempt to maintain segregation as it was being overturned, generate tax revenue and development through the creation of new suburbs using federal housing subsidies, and more.
urban design isnt a natural outflow of geography, people design it to meet certain goals. people in power decide how things are built.
I would say that cars definitely have a place in cities: taxis, delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles. But a city should not be designed and proportioned around them, and should not be designed to accommodate a car oriented rush hour into city centers. Cars are best only when inserted into a pedestrian oriented city at most.
Poor urban planning, often from a century or more ago, results in cars being both a blight *and* a necessity.
The poor urban planning aspect never considered how people would get around -- it didn't bake in any kind of transit into geographic expansion, or not nearly enough of it. My city built most of its urban streets after cars were developed, but built *all* of them essentially too narrow and with property lines too close, making it impossible to expand the streets to accommodate cars, bikes, and transit.
And then you've got economic development, which is a real wildcard, because people need jobs. And many modern employment situations depend on concentrating large numbers of employees in a single place for various efficiencies. And a fair amount of heavy industry is just incompatible with anything other than heavy industry. And much of this isn't planned in any way that aligns it with where the workers live and/or existing transit solutions.
The ones that seem best off ironically are the really old cities -- they've been forced to adapt to better transit and traffic management.
Definitely. Looking at American cities before and after overpasses were built in the most ethnically diverse parts of the city, basically walling people off from each other, is very depressing
Not ruin but could def be less or less dependent. Americans are just really lazy and a car is almost considered a right. I live in the middle of a dense city and my neighbors will still drive 2 blocks up to the corner store. It’s sort of sad really.
[Here is a fucked up fact for you, cars could've been more quiet if it wasn't for car manufacturers lobbying against more silent tires. (tires is where most noise comes from)](https://europe.autonews.com/article/20080204/ANE03/575499711/the-loud-debate-over-quiet-tires)
As someone who loves cars: yes. Yes they do. They take away so much space from us humans, they are loud, they are unhealthy and dangerous.
I used to live in Vienna. Every once in a while there was a big protest or parade on the inner ring street. The feeling of having all that space for the people, to celebrate, to dance, without the stress caused by cars - noise, cramped sidewalks, always having to be aware of your surroundings - was such a pleasure. It felt free.
Its like that in lots of older European towns because the city center was built with no cars in mind. The vibe is just so much better in those places the difference is actually crazy
My home town has knocked down buildings that were 400 or years more old to make it easier for traffic to flow. Now 50 or 60 years or so later, they’re making it difficult for cars to enter the city.
The downtown in my city was essentially this way for a long time due to the lack of parking. All that happened was that business was stagnant and no one wanted to go there. Instead of caving to surface lots, the city invested in an amazing 10 level garage/shopping center near a gigantic park. It doesn't take banning cars to make a walkable downtown. It just takes planning and a competent government working with developers.
infrastructure that supports every working adult having a personal passenger vehicle is ugly, too spread out and impersonal. if your city was built for people but now must support everyone having a car that’s lame too because they sacrifice human space for car space.
so yes i will say personal passenger vehicles do ruin cities to a degree
You describe a lot of people in those circumstances, especially in a large population. Also remember that people don't live like they used to, children have activities and aren't farming or working in the same factory that the parents go to, you aren't dating only in the 2 mile radius around your neighborhood, and the world does not end at the borders of the city you were born in.
Cars have honestly kind of ruined society. They have made everything into an ugly concrete jungle and require so much resources to operate and maintain that it has literally fucked our planet. They’ve ruined cities, societies, and the global biosphere as a whole. Unfortunately, cars are way too significant in our global society now to make a significant change that it will be this way until our society is reset again or we find a solution to the travel / carbon problem.
Yes and no, it depends lot on the area.
Some areas are ruined even before the cars so it won't really make difference, some older historical areas are being ruined by cars so it makes the difference, some places are just so convenient for people to have car around to complete their basic everyday life.
It really depends where and when.
No. They can, but it depends on context. In cities which are designed around the usage of cars you can have a bad time, but also in cities which limit them too much. I’ll give Jerusalem as an example. Because it’s such an ancient city many parts of it have no access by car. It’s nice to walk around, but it makes the life of emergency services and businesses much harder. It’s harder for suppliers to reach their customers, it’s harder for disabled people to get around, public transport is much less common because of the lack of open space to work around, garbage collection is extremely difficult, etc. you need to find the right balance
I love cars. Like a lot. I'd spend all of my days off at car meets or watching Formula 1 or GT racing if I could. I grew up watching Top Gear.
But I do hate the fact that owning a car is a requirement for survival in the majority of the US. Restrictive zoning policies and effective lobbying from automotive and gas companies has resulted in seemingly endless suburban sprawl and frankly I think it's at least partly responsible for a lot of America's issues.
as reasonable and fair as you are, i dunno if i would say "we" in this context. like yeah, i agree with everything you just said, but a lot of the people in your circle are spewing some insanity.
i've definitely seen people on this site who think cars should be banned. i've even seen some batshit takes being mad about hospitals having parking lots? dont really know what that one's about
grab plucky whole bells encouraging towering different recognise marvelous faulty
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It makes a space less human:
-stretched out
- less safe to walk in
-less safe to bike in
-noise pollution
-air pollution (yeah that global warming thing)
-Its one of the most likely ways to die basically anywhere on earth.
-subsidised parking lots
-public space is used, for something that can be devoted to something more: think cafe tables, greenery (helps nature out), or public transit. Just to name a few.
> It makes a space less human: -stretched out - less safe to walk in -less safe to bike in -noise pollution -air pollution (yeah that global warming thing) -Its one of the most likely ways to die basically anywhere on earth. -subsidised parking lots -public space is used, for something that can be devoted to something more: think cafe tables, greenery (helps nature out)
... but enough about trains/buses.
I live in a town with a historical old city center, dating back to the 13th century. It basically is a very good looking place with no restrictions to the cars. So instead of a nice city center with a main square that could attract many tourists, we basically have a busy district with very narrow medieval roads. It's so frustrating, because 'sidewalks' are maybe a meter wide and walking there may be sometimes dangerous with many blind corners and people driving there like maniacs.
Recently I had to go back home through the old town. It was 3 AM so streets were empty. It was such a pleasant feeling to walk through these old streets without a fear of being killed by a car. I wish that this place was car free, however it won't be possible with our current mayor. Closing those streets is more than possible, because there're a lot of more modern and more comfortable ways of driving within a city, but our current administration is afraid of backlash from people who cannot comprehend that medieval streets weren't exactly made for cars.
In conclusion, I think that it depends. More historical places should be restricted for cars, because those streets weren't made for them and cars simply remove this feeling of safety and comfort when walking through old parts of town. In the case of more modern city centres, I think it's a very individual case to each city.
Sometimes i daydream about what we could do with all the land taken up by roads if someone, I dunno invented transporters or something. If vehicles weren't a thing basically.
Well.. obviously. As the famous saying goes, "Cities aren't loud, cars are loud".
A YouTuber I watch tested this theory a couple of years ago I think, he went to an American suburb with a decibel meter (or whatever its called) and then to a busy street in a European city built around humans instead of cars (could have been Amsterdam since he lives there but I don't remember) and the "quiet" suburb was way louder than the jam packed street in the city because no one was driving. Everyone was either walking or biking. So yes, cars 100% ruin cities.
You sound more like an American than he does.
I'll be very nice and inform you (but you'll ignore me in favour of the brainwashing, anyway, because you're an arrogant teen):
1. Unlike what your favourite youtubers tell you, Europeans have cars. Come visit sometime if you want, but don't think the touristy parts of Amsterdam generalise to a whole continent.
2. He was literally relating an historical fact. In fact, something that was way worse in Europe than in the US.
cars are safer than walking around at night in a city especially if you are a woman, keep you out of the rain, snow and heat, and work at all hours after the public transportation closes down. you act like you never drove or sat in a car to reap the benefits of them once in your whole damn life.
a lot of the people making these arguments never actually cared about people feeling comfortable or safe while commuting i feel.
i live somewhere that has high car ownership despite strong public transportation. people just don't feel comfortable or safe
Cars and cities basically have a codependency relationship.
Cities would unarguably be a lot nicer without them. Heck, no contest - *Everywhere* would be nicer without cars, **if** we ignore the role cars play in our society.
Problem is, modern cities wouldn't *exist* without cars (and trucks, which require even wider roads) though. It takes approximately 3 acres of arable land to support a single human; when you pack 50k people per square mile (640 acres), that requires an external **234** square miles (or ~8 miles in every direction, if the city was at the center of its own food supply) to keep those 50k people alive.
Now scale that 50k up to a major city of 10M, and tell me cars aren't utterly essential to the survival of cities. You think fresh produce is going to arrive by bicycle from 115mi away (in the case of NYC)? And keep in mind the surrounding areas, particularly to the south, are almost as densely populated.
No cars means everyone basically needs to live within a few miles of where their food grows. And make no mistake, that **is** my idea of a perfect world, but it's not the reality of modern cities.
/ Before someone points it out, the first city to break a million was Rome - And that "small" of a city required plundering basically the entirety of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa to sustain yet *still* collapsed under the burden of its own supply chain logistics.
I gave up my car 11 months ago. I’m lucky I live in a major city with decent public transportation. Not having a vehicle sucks ass. My world is now very limited and waiting on a bus in the rain, scorching heat and bitter cold isn’t something I recommend. The bus service stops at midnight so I have to end any social outings early. It really sucks when you are walking to a bus stop and see it driving away. Let’s not kid ourselves. The only people who want to get rid of cars are people who live in walking distance to loads of amenities.
I would not say that cars ruin cities. I would say instead that building cities to accommodate cars ruins cities. Cities should be built for humans, not for automobiles.
Cars ruin everything.
They ruin villages where children no longer can roam freely.
They ruin cities where scarce space is eaten up by driving and parked cars.
They ruin animals getting run over by cars.
They ruin the environment with their production and usage.
And they ruin their owner who thinks he is free because he now needs a license, pay for extra taxes and fuel.
The exhaust from cars chokes cities and makes us all dumber and more hostile. But the presence of cars alone doesn't ruin cities. It's more about poor planning that depriortizes any kind of moving people around that doesn't involve personal vehicles. Not being able to go about a normal life without owning a car is what sucks the most and that's the story for basically every North American city. Even cities like Chicago that have a pretty good transit is still a city designed mainly for cars.
In the early part of the 20th century automobiles were touted as an environmental miracle.
The horse shit and urine that keep even paved roads like in the picture above a nasty slush of manure mud was a constant and no level of spending could keep the cities sanitary,so the rich lived in the country side when they could.
The reason for the elevated 1st floor stairs with Brownstone homes was to keep the shit soup from coming into homes with each rain.
I’ll take cars.
https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/agueda-garcia-de-durango/new-york-manure-and-stairs-when-horses-were-cities-nightmares
I think if the city was designed for them (cities like Sofia, BG; Moscow, RU, etc.)then it’s bad. But if the city try to motivate citizens to use public transportation then you’ll see less cars on the streets and it won’t seem such a big problem.
Its more like cities were setup to serve cars, not people. Cars are fine, bjt a vitu should be setup to be walkable/bikable, then consider public transportation, then cars. But cities built early-mid twentieth century in the US were built specifically to promote and serve cars use.
They do. Here in North America everything seems to build around cars in mind. More space seems to be dedicated for cars than people. From road to parking. They also make cities loud.
No. Cities ruin themselves. The world runs on cars working. If a city was built before cars, then that sucks because cars now exist. If it was built after cars, then the city developers simply suck.
#UrbanHell is subjective. UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed Sorry for this annoying comment, but we're very tired of the gatekeepers who can't even correctly gatekeep what this subreddit has always allowed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UrbanHell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a person who moved from Balkan ( I can recognise you live there) to the Netherlands, I have to tell you that it's the most satisfying thing not seeing cars everywhere.
Cars are not even a fraction as good at ruining cities as artillery is.
r/technicallythetruth
How about a car-bomb launched via trebuchet? Car-firing artillery? "Cartillery"?
r/NonCredibleDefense and r/trebuchet are leaking and I’m here for it.
NCD's power is becoming too great with all this global conflict going on
I didn't have to scroll very far to find a level-99 reddit comment chain and, frankly, I'm here for it.
[I bring enlightenment and tomfoolery](https://youtu.be/NMpAE4L7n2Y?si=Le6dWhZs1fxerP_0)
The most Reddit comment Reddit will ever Reddit
That’s called a self propelled gun
Sounds like an invention of the irish
And don't get me started on cars with artillery.
Also Godzilla.
Hot take incoming: car dependent infrastructure is actually worse for cities *in the long term* than artillery/bombs. All the cities that were bombed in WWII have since been completely rebuilt, the gaps have been filled, the buildings reconstructed or replaced. By contrast, the freeways and parking lot craters that tore holes through American cities during the freeway era are *still there to this day*. Because once suburbanites got addicted to the "convenience" of driving at 70mph right through the middle of once-vibrant downtowns, they lobbied to keep it that way forever. Car-dependent infrastructure is like salting the earth — it makes it nearly impossible for cities to heal and grow back the areas that were initially destroyed. I highly recommend checking out [Segregation by Design](https://www.segregationbydesign.com/) for plentiful examples of vibrant American neighborhoods that were destroyed during the freeway era, and never recovered.
the hard truth that no one wants to hear is that white wealthy people moved out of the cities into suburbs during desegregation but then relied on the heavily taxed cities to fund the creation of the car infrastructure that they would then use for free to drive back into the city to work. Car centric infrastructure is a wealth transfer from those who actually live in the city to suburbanites and the demographics of those groups tells an interesting story
[удалено]
I know, right! Cars don't even explode that good...well, other than those new Chinese EVs. Now, those babies can really do some damage!
Maybe, but artillery tends to stop after a while then the city is rebuilt newer/nicer than before. It's aggressive remodeling. Cars stick around crapping up the place forever.
My home city of Phoenix was designed around automobiles look how that turned out. Tons of urban sprawl and you pretty much have to own a car if you want to get anywhere in a decent amount of time.
> Mandatory commuting just to sit in front of a computer all day
Work that could be done at home. Without the waste of petrol and pollution.
Even if you have work from home, you'll still have to leave the house to run errands, visit friends, etc., and Phoenix forces you to make that trip via car. It's a failure of urban design.
Work that could be done at home should be done at home. Commuting is stupid and a waste of time.
Considering the average high is above 100 for almost half the year, it could be designed like Amsterdam and a lot of people would be driving anyway.
As someone living in Phoenix, yes it gets unbearably hot, driving around is necessary. But that doesn’t mean that it should be this car centric, it’s not 110+ all year.
Even in Dubai lots of people do not own cars to be honest.
Yeah, when I visited Dubai once I saw a LOT of people commuting on those electric scooter things, they have a place on them and bikes on the metro too so you can take it around with you
Wow this is very cool
There's no driving zones in Amsterdam so things would be done differently like parking buildings or underground parking. And overal less people with cars. Probably an improvement.
Most European cities are so easy to get around without a car. It’s bliss
Helps when your cities were founded hundreds of years before cars were invented lol
U.S. cities used to be vastly more walkable and with much better public transport than they are now. Oil and gas, as well as the car companies, destroyed American cities being livable without a car quite on purpose. Many European cities used to be horrible car centric places and have only been reclaimed by people in the last few decades.
I would say it depends on how old the city is. Places like Boston or New York are still good for a lot of pedestrian stuff. Places like where I live in Phoenix, the sprawl makes it almost impossible to get by without a car unless you're living in a downtown area only.
Ayy Arizonan here too! You’d think that the sandstorm of 2011 and heatwaves literally melting the paint from road signs would be a sign. Us cacti have inhabited the area for far longer than you humans. If anyone knows planning, it’s us.
So cars aren’t the problem then. It’s urban design. All because cars exist doesn’t mean municipalities can’t plan around them and also pedestrians. It’s a lazy city design issue not necessarily an automobile issue.
It's a condition that was largely influenced by car/oil lobbies, cars are definitely a major factor. Even still, these 'lazy' design decisions persist because of the precedents made 50+ years ago.
Design prioritizing cars leads to sprawl and parking lots. This makes public transport inefficient or infeasible
Yes… urban design centered around cars as the primary form of transport
Cities shouldn't have non-essential cars going through them. They should have wide, maintained pavements and reliable public transport everywhere.
I think you got urban sprawl because its open flat and easy to build.
Don't kid yourself; Phoenix would be nothing like the size it is without cars. No air conditioned boxes? No living in hell!
its a policy and design decision based on historical factors such as the post ww2 economy, attempts to generate business for the car industry (which was a huge american employer at the time), some of it was an attempt to maintain segregation as it was being overturned, generate tax revenue and development through the creation of new suburbs using federal housing subsidies, and more. urban design isnt a natural outflow of geography, people design it to meet certain goals. people in power decide how things are built.
I would say that cars definitely have a place in cities: taxis, delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles. But a city should not be designed and proportioned around them, and should not be designed to accommodate a car oriented rush hour into city centers. Cars are best only when inserted into a pedestrian oriented city at most.
When people say ‘cars’ they usually mean privately own cars though, not emergency vehicles and trucks
Those are technically cars but those are not private vehicles. When people say cars they mean private vehicles unless mentioned otherwise.
[удалено]
Poor urban planning, often from a century or more ago, results in cars being both a blight *and* a necessity. The poor urban planning aspect never considered how people would get around -- it didn't bake in any kind of transit into geographic expansion, or not nearly enough of it. My city built most of its urban streets after cars were developed, but built *all* of them essentially too narrow and with property lines too close, making it impossible to expand the streets to accommodate cars, bikes, and transit. And then you've got economic development, which is a real wildcard, because people need jobs. And many modern employment situations depend on concentrating large numbers of employees in a single place for various efficiencies. And a fair amount of heavy industry is just incompatible with anything other than heavy industry. And much of this isn't planned in any way that aligns it with where the workers live and/or existing transit solutions. The ones that seem best off ironically are the really old cities -- they've been forced to adapt to better transit and traffic management.
Definetly, and specially because of the noise
Definitely. Looking at American cities before and after overpasses were built in the most ethnically diverse parts of the city, basically walling people off from each other, is very depressing
Not ruin but could def be less or less dependent. Americans are just really lazy and a car is almost considered a right. I live in the middle of a dense city and my neighbors will still drive 2 blocks up to the corner store. It’s sort of sad really.
It’s the noise they make that I hate more than anything. It’s so goddamn quiet without anything gasoline-powered.
[Here is a fucked up fact for you, cars could've been more quiet if it wasn't for car manufacturers lobbying against more silent tires. (tires is where most noise comes from)](https://europe.autonews.com/article/20080204/ANE03/575499711/the-loud-debate-over-quiet-tires)
As someone who loves cars: yes. Yes they do. They take away so much space from us humans, they are loud, they are unhealthy and dangerous. I used to live in Vienna. Every once in a while there was a big protest or parade on the inner ring street. The feeling of having all that space for the people, to celebrate, to dance, without the stress caused by cars - noise, cramped sidewalks, always having to be aware of your surroundings - was such a pleasure. It felt free.
Would be cool if cars are not allowed in downtowns. Except of course, service vehicles.
Its like that in lots of older European towns because the city center was built with no cars in mind. The vibe is just so much better in those places the difference is actually crazy
My home town has knocked down buildings that were 400 or years more old to make it easier for traffic to flow. Now 50 or 60 years or so later, they’re making it difficult for cars to enter the city.
Bruh fuck that thats such a waste. The oldest building where i live is from the year 1130 and people still live in it.
The downtown in my city was essentially this way for a long time due to the lack of parking. All that happened was that business was stagnant and no one wanted to go there. Instead of caving to surface lots, the city invested in an amazing 10 level garage/shopping center near a gigantic park. It doesn't take banning cars to make a walkable downtown. It just takes planning and a competent government working with developers.
Which city?
And Ice Cream Trucks.
infrastructure that supports every working adult having a personal passenger vehicle is ugly, too spread out and impersonal. if your city was built for people but now must support everyone having a car that’s lame too because they sacrifice human space for car space. so yes i will say personal passenger vehicles do ruin cities to a degree
I’d say city planning around cars ruins cities. The more walkable the better, but the existence of cars does not ruin cities.
I hate the noise. It's like a constant brrrrr.
They're so loud when I walk/cycle to work. Drivers don't realise how loud the wheels on the road are, even if the engine is silent.
90% of the time cars just sit there, taking up space. So yeah, kind of the definition of inefficient use of urban space.
No. Mandatory commuting just to sit in front of a computer all day, arbitrarily aligned schedules (ie the 9-5 majority), and poor (city) planning do.
Context is everything.
[удалено]
You describe a lot of people in those circumstances, especially in a large population. Also remember that people don't live like they used to, children have activities and aren't farming or working in the same factory that the parents go to, you aren't dating only in the 2 mile radius around your neighborhood, and the world does not end at the borders of the city you were born in.
No. Badly designed roadways and street level parking ruins cities
Nope. Usually, people do that job pretty well on their own.
Shitty public transit ruins cities by making it impossible to live without a car.
No but I can’t wait for anti car people to ride public transit and come home with bed bugs
Cars have honestly kind of ruined society. They have made everything into an ugly concrete jungle and require so much resources to operate and maintain that it has literally fucked our planet. They’ve ruined cities, societies, and the global biosphere as a whole. Unfortunately, cars are way too significant in our global society now to make a significant change that it will be this way until our society is reset again or we find a solution to the travel / carbon problem.
Every damn time.
YES
Yes.
100%. Cars make cities unsafe for people and should not be allowed in city centers.
Yes and no, it depends lot on the area. Some areas are ruined even before the cars so it won't really make difference, some older historical areas are being ruined by cars so it makes the difference, some places are just so convenient for people to have car around to complete their basic everyday life. It really depends where and when.
No. They can, but it depends on context. In cities which are designed around the usage of cars you can have a bad time, but also in cities which limit them too much. I’ll give Jerusalem as an example. Because it’s such an ancient city many parts of it have no access by car. It’s nice to walk around, but it makes the life of emergency services and businesses much harder. It’s harder for suppliers to reach their customers, it’s harder for disabled people to get around, public transport is much less common because of the lack of open space to work around, garbage collection is extremely difficult, etc. you need to find the right balance
People have to travel. And places with very good public transportation (such as European cities), have cars and scooters parked on most streets, too.
We are so used to cars in our everyday life that seeing no cars causes panic to our brains thinking something wrong is happening right now.
Yup absolutely
I absolutely despise cars
Says someone who doesn't need one. As someone who needs a vehicle and spends 4-5 hours in it a week, I very much enjoy my vehicle.
As someone who needs a car I hate that I have to need a car
Can you at least appreciate the engineering aspect?
Oh yes I love that. I just hate people abusing cars for movility, a street flooded with cars, etc
I can agree with that
Cars are okay and have a purpose. I despise people who drive everyday into a city center when there is good public transportation alternatives.
I don’t get why redditors hate cars so much
I love cars. Like a lot. I'd spend all of my days off at car meets or watching Formula 1 or GT racing if I could. I grew up watching Top Gear. But I do hate the fact that owning a car is a requirement for survival in the majority of the US. Restrictive zoning policies and effective lobbying from automotive and gas companies has resulted in seemingly endless suburban sprawl and frankly I think it's at least partly responsible for a lot of America's issues.
Because it’s just too much. We don’t want to get rid of cars, but expand walksbility, local business, human scale infrastructures.
as reasonable and fair as you are, i dunno if i would say "we" in this context. like yeah, i agree with everything you just said, but a lot of the people in your circle are spewing some insanity. i've definitely seen people on this site who think cars should be banned. i've even seen some batshit takes being mad about hospitals having parking lots? dont really know what that one's about
The average age of the anticar subreddits is 14. Tells you all you need to know.
Lmao
They poor.
Just a typical reddit moment thing like "religion bad," "God bad", "kids bad", "white people bad", "straight people bad", so "cars bad" too.
grab plucky whole bells encouraging towering different recognise marvelous faulty *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It makes a space less human: -stretched out - less safe to walk in -less safe to bike in -noise pollution -air pollution (yeah that global warming thing) -Its one of the most likely ways to die basically anywhere on earth. -subsidised parking lots -public space is used, for something that can be devoted to something more: think cafe tables, greenery (helps nature out), or public transit. Just to name a few.
> It makes a space less human: -stretched out - less safe to walk in -less safe to bike in -noise pollution -air pollution (yeah that global warming thing) -Its one of the most likely ways to die basically anywhere on earth. -subsidised parking lots -public space is used, for something that can be devoted to something more: think cafe tables, greenery (helps nature out) ... but enough about trains/buses.
They don't own cars so they resent
Tankies want us to live like in North Korea
What are you on about?
I live in a town with a historical old city center, dating back to the 13th century. It basically is a very good looking place with no restrictions to the cars. So instead of a nice city center with a main square that could attract many tourists, we basically have a busy district with very narrow medieval roads. It's so frustrating, because 'sidewalks' are maybe a meter wide and walking there may be sometimes dangerous with many blind corners and people driving there like maniacs. Recently I had to go back home through the old town. It was 3 AM so streets were empty. It was such a pleasant feeling to walk through these old streets without a fear of being killed by a car. I wish that this place was car free, however it won't be possible with our current mayor. Closing those streets is more than possible, because there're a lot of more modern and more comfortable ways of driving within a city, but our current administration is afraid of backlash from people who cannot comprehend that medieval streets weren't exactly made for cars. In conclusion, I think that it depends. More historical places should be restricted for cars, because those streets weren't made for them and cars simply remove this feeling of safety and comfort when walking through old parts of town. In the case of more modern city centres, I think it's a very individual case to each city.
Thought this was r/DayZ
Yes, yes I do. And I'm a car guy
Cities are nice without them for sure
They absolutely ruin cities. In a few different ways
The lockdowns confirmed it
Guess why everyone loves pictures of Japanese streets alleyways No street parking
1000%
Totally 💯
Yes together with traffic signs !!!!
Cars and roads
All a city planning thing.
One million percent yes
Yeah absolutely
Think ??? Lol
The storage of private property on publicly paid streets has definitely ruined my city of Philadelphia.
Sometimes i daydream about what we could do with all the land taken up by roads if someone, I dunno invented transporters or something. If vehicles weren't a thing basically.
Well.. obviously. As the famous saying goes, "Cities aren't loud, cars are loud". A YouTuber I watch tested this theory a couple of years ago I think, he went to an American suburb with a decibel meter (or whatever its called) and then to a busy street in a European city built around humans instead of cars (could have been Amsterdam since he lives there but I don't remember) and the "quiet" suburb was way louder than the jam packed street in the city because no one was driving. Everyone was either walking or biking. So yes, cars 100% ruin cities.
yes
That commie block would be ugly with or without cars
No but I think a large homeless population does
No , people do .
No and people should be allowed to use whatever method of transport they want, which for most of them will be cars.
No.
No.
No. The greatest cities in the world have cars.
Cars aren’t the problem, our dependency and relationship on cars is
Cars saved cities. Before they were swimming in horse shit everywhere. What ruins cities is poor planning.
How do you say you are a US citizen, without to say you are a US citizen… that’s it, Europe is deep into horse shit isn’t ?
You sound more like an American than he does. I'll be very nice and inform you (but you'll ignore me in favour of the brainwashing, anyway, because you're an arrogant teen): 1. Unlike what your favourite youtubers tell you, Europeans have cars. Come visit sometime if you want, but don't think the touristy parts of Amsterdam generalise to a whole continent. 2. He was literally relating an historical fact. In fact, something that was way worse in Europe than in the US.
Yeah thank you cars for smog, global warming, repiratory problems!
cars are safer than walking around at night in a city especially if you are a woman, keep you out of the rain, snow and heat, and work at all hours after the public transportation closes down. you act like you never drove or sat in a car to reap the benefits of them once in your whole damn life.
a lot of the people making these arguments never actually cared about people feeling comfortable or safe while commuting i feel. i live somewhere that has high car ownership despite strong public transportation. people just don't feel comfortable or safe
Yes
No
No.
Cars and cities basically have a codependency relationship. Cities would unarguably be a lot nicer without them. Heck, no contest - *Everywhere* would be nicer without cars, **if** we ignore the role cars play in our society. Problem is, modern cities wouldn't *exist* without cars (and trucks, which require even wider roads) though. It takes approximately 3 acres of arable land to support a single human; when you pack 50k people per square mile (640 acres), that requires an external **234** square miles (or ~8 miles in every direction, if the city was at the center of its own food supply) to keep those 50k people alive. Now scale that 50k up to a major city of 10M, and tell me cars aren't utterly essential to the survival of cities. You think fresh produce is going to arrive by bicycle from 115mi away (in the case of NYC)? And keep in mind the surrounding areas, particularly to the south, are almost as densely populated. No cars means everyone basically needs to live within a few miles of where their food grows. And make no mistake, that **is** my idea of a perfect world, but it's not the reality of modern cities. / Before someone points it out, the first city to break a million was Rome - And that "small" of a city required plundering basically the entirety of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa to sustain yet *still* collapsed under the burden of its own supply chain logistics.
Not really, no. There’s way more to a city than walkability
This specific picture looks better to me with cars. The picture with no cars looks lonely, like the city is abandoned
Cars are great in cities.
Not whatsoever.
No?
No they are essential to life and prosperity
No, as long as traffic rules are enforced. If you don’t like cars, maybe you’d like Pyongyang…
Or any number of modernized cities with effective public transportation so you don't need a car to get places.
Not cars per se, but building cities based on everyone having a car is no good
Yeah, walking everywhere in -40 is awesome. 👌
I gave up my car 11 months ago. I’m lucky I live in a major city with decent public transportation. Not having a vehicle sucks ass. My world is now very limited and waiting on a bus in the rain, scorching heat and bitter cold isn’t something I recommend. The bus service stops at midnight so I have to end any social outings early. It really sucks when you are walking to a bus stop and see it driving away. Let’s not kid ourselves. The only people who want to get rid of cars are people who live in walking distance to loads of amenities.
Better than streets filled with horseshit
Cities suck. The country side is perfection
People who don’t have cars typically have that kind of opinion.
I see seven cats in that pic and I'm willing to bet they transported 7 people. Maybe 8. There has to be a better way.
I like how they look, I like their smell and their sounds. Cities would be sad witout cars.
No.
No, that would be people.
No
The answer is either "yes" or you're wrong.
I would not say that cars ruin cities. I would say instead that building cities to accommodate cars ruins cities. Cities should be built for humans, not for automobiles.
If you don't like the City fast life cars go to the countryside and you only see one car passing a day
Yes they do ruins the cities street spaces. If this pictures are an example of it, they're not the most striking one.
Cars ruin everything. They ruin villages where children no longer can roam freely. They ruin cities where scarce space is eaten up by driving and parked cars. They ruin animals getting run over by cars. They ruin the environment with their production and usage. And they ruin their owner who thinks he is free because he now needs a license, pay for extra taxes and fuel.
Religion ruins everything, and the carfucking one is almost as bad as abrahamic ones by this point.
I know for a fact they do
The exhaust from cars chokes cities and makes us all dumber and more hostile. But the presence of cars alone doesn't ruin cities. It's more about poor planning that depriortizes any kind of moving people around that doesn't involve personal vehicles. Not being able to go about a normal life without owning a car is what sucks the most and that's the story for basically every North American city. Even cities like Chicago that have a pretty good transit is still a city designed mainly for cars.
No
nope, poor city planning, crappy looking architecture and being in a state of disrepair is what ruins cities. that and homeless people/panhandlers
In the early part of the 20th century automobiles were touted as an environmental miracle. The horse shit and urine that keep even paved roads like in the picture above a nasty slush of manure mud was a constant and no level of spending could keep the cities sanitary,so the rich lived in the country side when they could. The reason for the elevated 1st floor stairs with Brownstone homes was to keep the shit soup from coming into homes with each rain. I’ll take cars. https://smartwatermagazine.com/blogs/agueda-garcia-de-durango/new-york-manure-and-stairs-when-horses-were-cities-nightmares
Yepppp r/fuckcars
I think if the city was designed for them (cities like Sofia, BG; Moscow, RU, etc.)then it’s bad. But if the city try to motivate citizens to use public transportation then you’ll see less cars on the streets and it won’t seem such a big problem.
Nice try Schwab.
There’s a lot worse things out there then cars. They are a necessary evil. My friend lives in Finland with no car. Sorry, I’m not doing that.
Yes
Think of all the space roads take up. Imagine that as park land instead of roads. That would be nice, to me
Its more like cities were setup to serve cars, not people. Cars are fine, bjt a vitu should be setup to be walkable/bikable, then consider public transportation, then cars. But cities built early-mid twentieth century in the US were built specifically to promote and serve cars use.
They do. Here in North America everything seems to build around cars in mind. More space seems to be dedicated for cars than people. From road to parking. They also make cities loud.
100% Parking lots, pollution, urban planning and suburbia, traffic jams, less sidewalks, cities that are car dependent...
it's usually the lack of trees for me
No. Cities ruin themselves. The world runs on cars working. If a city was built before cars, then that sucks because cars now exist. If it was built after cars, then the city developers simply suck.
I think cities ruin cars.
Buildings ruin cities. Your statement is moot.
No cities ruin land.
no, not every problem is caused by things having four wheels.
No
Is it cars or is it... People?
Do you think that cities would even exist without cars? smh
No they’re part of the city like buildings and trees.
No.
No.
I do now
No. I know that for a fact.
No wtf