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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Showerthoughts
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Nope but the nearest mall to me is 2 hours drive. No one is building rails out into the smaller counties. The USA is massive. I've lived in Europe, its a lot smaller, and people still have cars. Not saying this couldn't work for cities but people forget how spread out we are here in the usa.
Have you considered that this is because most of space in USA is allocated only for cars? Or that if this space wasn't allocated to cars, then you wouldn't need to traverse such disyance in first place?
The solution: trains
Look I'm not arguing that we shouldn't be putting in trains as much as possible but it's not a solution to cars. Hell in Europe people still drive a good bit.
The solution is not living in the middle of anywhere, two hours away from civilization. If you lived next to the mall, you could go there by foot.
You know why houses in populated areas cost so much?
That's why, everyone wanting to be right next to everything.
I live where I do because I don't like crowds, and noise.
Maybe I’m biased living in a “European” part of the US, but it can translate very well to our country. the problem is not that the place is large, but so many places are suburban or trying to keep that rural feel, yet you want massive warehouse stores for everyday shopping. Everything wants to be its own destination, so there is no real concentration of snything
But every town can have a center where common areas are common. Every town can have a center with whatever shops and restaurants. Every town of every size can have some things in a higher density area that’s walkable. In our mythology, we call it “Main Street, USA” and look back at it as a long gone ideal, but it’s still a useful concept, still around in some places, and can be re-created. In my towns case it did well focussing on restaurants, because you can’t ft a Costco or modern grocery there. But there’s also a library, small movie theater, town Common. All the buses run there, and you can find taxis, bicycles or scooters, a nice river walk,etc. it also has a concentration of apartments and condos, so there are always people around