Most people live in Asia, however almost none of us use Reddit.
This sub in generally not that aware of stuff that goes on in Asia, despite the continent having some of the best and worst urbanism in the world.
I was gonna say, the three biggest cities in NA are all in Mexico iirc (eta not true because I was given metro area totals when I visited, but they do have 3 in the top 10)! And CDMX wayyyyyy dwarfs the rest.
Just letting you know, Iām American and I totally support this cause. Iām actually in Europe right now and having a blast. Tomorrow is a lesson for my dad to use google maps to take the train or bus around the city.
just a tip, there can be well designed regional apps that work better than finding your way with google. I know Vienna for example didnt share their public transport data with google for the longest time.
Pretty sure we would find other kind of āgroupsā like higher education, specific industries and so on. Would make up for a weird city for sure not covering all facets of normal society, would be interesting to see what comes out
Well, I can tell you there'd at least be a good number of construction workers. It's a 50-50 shot, but half of every one I work with, and talk to about things like this, mostly or fully agree, so it could be more well rounded than you'd initially suspect
That's the thinking. You get a dedicated community to start the seed, and plenty more would join in. Most of the people I know are not on Reddit - or they don't make that public - but a large percentage want to live in a "European walkable town". I think many would join in once it reached investment level planning.
Mexico City is number one, but the USA holds spots 2, 3, 5, and 6 out of the top 10
Canada holds 4 and 9 Mexico 1, 8, and 10, and Cuba 7 somehow with Havana
So you're half right, 3 of the biggest cities are in Mexico, not the 3 biggest cities though.
Ahhhh when they told us population sizes for the cities in Mexico they included the metro areas. Thanks for correcting.
Also wow I had no idea Havana was that big!
It doesnāt have to be just this sub - there are many communities looking for the same lifestyle, and I am sure there will be e people who have never been on Reddit who would enjoy living in a small town urban environment as well.
Man, you're actually able to live around where your family is? It seems really rare these days, at least among my friends, that people live where their families are. Everyone seems torn apart and thrown around the country (USA) because of jobs and housing forcing people out of the places they grew up in.
> It might just be a collection of covered wagons for awhile
The modern equivalent would be trailers. But I suppose "let's all go live in a trailer park!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Also people have such idealized ideas of capitalism. Getting a new job is very difficult for me. I canāt just leave my city. Iāll be out of a job. Not everyone here is some 6digit digital nomad who can work from anywhere.
Cities arenāt centrally planned but serve an economic need. NYC and Chicago for their waterway and rail at the turn of the century and before, etc. you canāt just plop one down anywhere.
Also wait until people realize the crony capitalism that is built into our system. Not only laws that dictate car culture on the state level but also the investors youāll need to build everything and theyāll have some strong thoughts on promoting car culture as well.
The best thing to do is slowly reform your local community. Add bike lanes. Advocate for better bus service. Safer roads. Etc.
> Cities arenāt centrally planned but serve an economic need. NYC and Chicago for their waterway and rail at the turn of the century and before, etc. you canāt just plop one down anywhere.
Cities are centrally planned to realize that economic need. Europeans didn't just start living in NYC, the Dutch government bought the rights to Manhattan and arranged transport for hundreds of people to settle there. That's central planning.
And most cities that exist now are built to serve economic needs that no longer apply. Places like Bristol and Manchester chug along despite having lost the reason for their explosive growth. And economic centers like the New York or London Stock Exchange are entirely unbound from physical needs. Or more recently, work from home has obsoleted the office spaces that take up extremely valuable real estate in many modern cities, and increasing automation from AI would free up more money and labor if the profits were fairly distributed.
Between a dense carfree design, a lack of office spaces to make working from home as efficient as possible, and a library economy, a city built from scratch would have some major economic advantages over most cities built in the past 100 years even if it were placed in the middle of nowhere. Its economic niche would be remote office labor, and by splitting the money saved on cars and offices with customers the companies there could offer cheaper labor than existing cities.
This is already sort of happening with twitch streamers and other content creators moving to Texas because of short-sighted appreciation of low taxes and because their only location need is the time zone and proximity to one another.
It probably could be done if you had enough people willing to do it. But you wouldn't be able to start with trolley cars since that would be pretty expensive.
You likely could pool enough resources to make something with bikes and micromobility as the primary mode of transit though.
With 4000 people, you wouldn't need anything faster than walking. If you had the population density of NYC, the whole city would only be 750 feet/250 meters across. With a population density of Philadelphia, it would under half a mile/1 km.
The villages only works because itās funded by social security, pensions, and 401ks. Not do they need to be near their jobs because they donāt work.
Itās a bit of an exception too. These people were coming to Florida anyway for retirement. The villages captures them and offers value in a large community. These people were going there anyway.
This is why intentional communities for working people is hard to pull off. Weāre tied to work and arenāt getting retirement checks.
It's hard to separate accumulation of capital from the accumulation of political power. The 1921 NEP tried to address it, but ultimately failed.
One of the founding principles for a YIMBY community would have to be fair land taxation, oriented toward encouraging sensible land use, and the broadest possible range of people who have a stakehold in the future of the city, including newcomers. To that end, we'll need to make a break with the history of every other city, and allow no special arrangements for the founding generation, and no grandfathering of property assessments. It would have to be radically fair. We can create our own Overton window of a blend of YIMBY and Georgist principles, with lots of fractious debate within it.
Please for the love of god tell me you aren't seriously suggesting a Reddit Island 3.0 \[Bikes Edition\].
If you don't know what I'm talking about, please google Reddit Island (it is hilarious). There's a few videos on it and it was wild.
TLDR: Redditors with zero resources pitched the idea of having a bunch of Redditors pitch in for an island. There were a few attempts at it, and all ended horribly (I believe one ended with a large number of the "Islanders" getting scammed for thousands by an "Island Seller").
So your first problem is that this subreddit is very international and Americans are actually the minority here if I remember correctly.
Then you get into a vast array of other limiting factors--almost nobody here has the assets to just uproot and move to some random place and invest a large amount of capital into a new home and helping transform the infrastructure and so on. Most people also aren't going to have remote jobs or the ability to retire immediately or whatever. Then you get into family connections and so on.
I doubt you could get even 1% of this subreddit (around 4,000 people, or the population of a typical small town) in on such a plan. And even if you could get that number of people involved, then you start getting into the logistical/political issues of herding all those cats into one place. And at that number, it would definitely have to be concentrated in one place to be able to have a meaningful community with enough amenities for daily life and so on.
Nah I've been on r/salary and everyone on Reddit apparently makes $250k a year, but four years ago they made $30k/yr. So with that kind of upward mobility it should be no problem securing financing. /s
Don't forget that their $250k/yr barely even covers rent and they are literally living in third-world poverty! The rest of us may need to help them out, even. /s
Perhaps not everyone in this sub would join, but not everyone that would join would be from this sub. Lots of people are interested in walkable cities without ever even visiting reddit once.
Wow if 4,000 people came together and made a walkable town!
It would be worth it to borrow money to move there, in view of how much you would save by freeing yourself from car dependency.
Letās do it somewhere nice where land is cheap.
We can live in Stardew Valley if we want it! (please!)
Lots of small towns *are* decently walkable, especially if they were established before the dominance of cars, even in the United States. Within city limits they don't even need any public transportation infrastructure if it's just built densely enough, since everything will be in walking distance by virtue of its small size. But populations of that size have trouble supporting an economy without either sending workers to bigger cities or bringing in outside consumers (e.g. tourism), so the big logistical hurdle there is figuring out how to connect that small town to the rest of the world, without cars. 4,000 people that are truly invested in the goal would be one of the most likely to be able to get a shuttle bus going, but rail connection will require the cooperation at the state and federal level
I'll also point out that there are already places kind of like this in the US--Catalina Island off the coast from LA and Mackinac Island in Michigan both ban cars. Of course, they are tiny expensive resort towns and you have to take a ferry to get to the mainland and access any kind of "normal" amenities.
Alternatively, there are larger towns/cities with nice pedestrianized areas in their downtowns where you can get away from the cars, like Boulder, Colorado; Charlottesville, Virginia; Burlington, Vermont; or Salem, Massachusetts. Theoretically, you can live a block or two off these cities' pedestrian malls/zones and rarely interact with cars.
It's a fun idea but I'm not sure it's easier/more practical than just taking advantage of an existing walkable town.
Sure I know someone who lives in Salem, a quarter mile from downtown and doesn't have a car. The issue is, that urban walkable core outside of few places is not expanding. It's still car centric.
Why not move to a small town and get active in local politics. 4000 people could sway the vote, and you can upgrade a small town that already has basic infrastructure.
I think the best bet is probably a West Virginian city that had its boom years pre-automobile so that it's built up for walkability (greatly helped by the geography of West Virginia) and has seen massive depopulation in the last few decades so it's built for a much larger and more populous city and the empty structures haven't yet gone completely to shit. That way you aren't displacing a bunch of people and you also aren't destroying a bunch of nature by building on greenfield construction.
Bonuses are that there is often existing rail infrastructure, possibly [some of it still functioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Amtrak_stations_in_West_Virginia) like with the Cardinal. West Virginia is also quite pretty in a lot of spots and has rather moderate climate.
There are real life cities with pretty good walkability. Call me crazy but I'd rather find a way to move to Amsterdam, Paris, or New York than gamble my future on a planned community made by a bunch of redditors.
I would rather a small city. I like smaller cities with a lot of nature nearer. Paris sized cities are expensive and constraining. Look at the community garden in New Orleans city park getting demolished for yet another road because of a tiny bit of traffic in the neighborhood. And the land value I. The city is far too prohibitive to get another community garden of that size anywhere.
And I think it will be easier politically to hold over the course of decades. I think in major cities, you will see the 1%s looking to get control and change for quick profits.
There are walkable smaller cities, too. They're hard to move to because either or both the cost of living is too high or the economic opportunities are too low, and I don't know how a planned city would fix those problems
There are lots of small walkable cities as well. But that's not really the point - the point is that this kind of utopian master planned community ends in tears 100 times out of 100. Moving to a real city that's further along the "maybe cars shouldn't be the default for everything" curve is a far better option than one that's going to descend into chaos and infighting the first time someone asks if a particular route needs a tram line or if an electric bus is a better option.
Or even just move to a walkable part of a nearby city and then push local leaders to put in more bike lanes and transit options as well as allow more high density developments.
I live in America, but I understand why non-Americans on this sub don't want to move here. After all, the fact that we don't have universal healthcare is a major deal breaker for lots of people. The horror stories of people going bankrupt over medical bills are heartbreaking.
The Network State concept: organize online, eventually buy land together.
The Free State Project was a libertarian project that did this with New Hampshire, it had mild success but they did it.
Edit: Mild success as in they had \~6000 of their 20,000 person goal make the move. Not a comment on the other ideological concerns.
Oddly enough, the best target might be a red state like Wyoming. They passed a number of pro-housing laws from the angle of pro-property rights. And "doing what you want with your land" is exactly the freedom a car-free town would want.
The free state project has not been successful, only maybe in that one town that the lady got attacked by a bear. the free state project is a joke in the state of NH lol
Yeah, I wasn't really commenting on how successful or not it was, but just that the idea of moving a bunch of politically aligned folks to an area to reshape it has been thought of and attempted before. There's probably a ton to learned from their attempt, but I haven't done a deep dive on it.
I thank you for the example, but I think a town based more on sustainable infrastructure is inherently more likely to succeed than a town based on political ideology. It takes all kinds to have a town.
But thank you for the great example of a network affect building a town. I think that was your intention, and it was well received.
> I think a town based more on sustainable infrastructure is inherently more likely to succeed than a town based on political ideology
Sustainable infrastructure isn't apolitical
Calling the Free State Project in New Hampshire a "mild success" is a bit of a stretch:
>The changes they voted in included a 30% reduction in the town's already-small budget,[27] denying funding to the county's senior-citizens council.[26] The libertarian newcomers additionally increased the city's costs by filing lawsuits against it in an attempt to set legal precedents.[27] The project has been associated with an increase in the number and aggressiveness of black bears in town, including entering homes, mauling people, and eating pets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project#History
Did you read the recent Atlantic Monthly article on this?
Many of the people are crypto people but they interviewed an urban planner too.
I am ready to move!
This one? [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/silicon-valley-billionaires-building-cities/677173/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/silicon-valley-billionaires-building-cities/677173/)
The problem is that we are all already beautifully car free in our existing lovely cities. Chicago, New York, DC, Pittsburgh, Philly, whatever. And once you live there you can advocate for more housing so we can make space for even more car free friends
Yeah, plenty of cities have been built or seen this scale population growth over the last few decades. My town will have tripled in 11 years if it stays on course of the last 8.
This reminds of a City Nerd video suggesting that all his followers should just move Wyoming and just vote in all pro urbanism candidates and change all their zoning laws.
I think that's more doable than starting a brand new city from scratch.
Thereās looking for solutions and then thereās overconfidently talking out your ass about things you donāt understand. āPeople would figure out what they needed to do to move their jobs or work.ā Yeah, just a couple insignificant details to iron out š
Well, this isn't a solution that I want at all. I'm not "doing nothing," I'd just rather put the work into reducing my own car dependency in my own hometown
Iām fucking in.
But thereās a lot to consider. For starters, would like somewhere we can bike year-round, and donāt need to import water to make plants grow.
Yeah, I live in Louisiana - I bike year round and donāt need water, for sure. Problem is that it is a southern state, so very poor infrastructure and very spread out. State level government would not be very supportive in most cases, but possible in some southern states like Georgia, possibly
I often think about how if we could look to things like Rajneeshpuram on what not to do, then we could accomplish so much more.
Basically just don't become a cult and we're good.
Ultimately it's unworkable to build a city from scratch. Instead of expecting someone else to build it for us (like Culdesac Tempe in Phoenix) check out this Co-op neighborhood in Berlin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2GhxK3DUg0
The people organizing it received significant opposition from the local government, but apparently not from the regional bureaucracy.
Actually 3.0 (Reddit Island was tried twice, the second time was funnier though).
There is no way that there are more than 1000 people from this sub that are
A) US Citizens/residents
B) Not minors
C) Working in a position where this would be feasible
D) Financially capable of taking this risk
E) Lonely enough to move away from all of your friends and family
F) New enough to Reddit that they haven't heard of Reddit Island
and G) Dumb enough to actually believe a bunch of randoms on the internet from a subreddit focused on public transit, walkable infrastructure, and hating cars (which is fair, cars suck) would have enough people that fit points A-F and have the necessary skills to start and operate a town (it takes a WHOLE lot of moving parts).
Finding a location that everyone in the sub could legally live and work in would certainly be an undertaking. America is definitely not going to be it.
I think America has the best chance for a first city to prove the concept - plenty of land, big pop, and the most car cultured of industrialized nations. If it works here, it should work anywhere. Australia would prove the concept well too?
1. not everyone is american
2. what % of people would be willing to move
3. what % of this sub is actually regularly lurking or active
4. they already tried reddit island
5. you do know how expensive that is right
we should take over minneapolis, cheapest city that's already in a good direction, has shit weather for walkability so it'll be even better proof of concept, not too enormous so a few thousand people would shift votes at least somewhat, blue state will help greatly
I grew up in Columbia, MD and I judge most places by the idyllic bar it set for me as a child - I could walk, by myself, to any number of places using paths, most of them through undeveloped/never to be developed land. I don't like what I've seen of Columbia these days, but it was amazing to grow up there.
That said, I agree with a lot of folks here that I'd rather just make existing cities more micro-mobility friendly. NYC should be much better than it is, but our govt officials keep taking a lazy approach to cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. Trying to build something from scratch is a fool's errand.
If we're allowing a time to get the ball rolling, I am actually working on a larger scope project than the one you're suggesting. It's not as dedicated to specifically city building, but it is a project that will eventually shape the area it takes root.
I won't say too much detail on it, as it's a lot and only in early steps, but it's essentially a community land trust but for an entire county, with aspects of cultural preservation and job development
Basic reality? Like, the sheer amount of work required to build a city and the money and the land and the location... And then everyone would need to move there and lose their jobs...
> But I think you could get a 250k city from all the communities interested in this lifestyle within 4 years.
You might be able, with all the efforts of everyone here combined, be able to get a paved bike path in the desert. Started.
I would love to live in Chicago; it is my favorite city, but I donāt think it will be possible to have a fully bike centric life there safely. And I donāt think it would ever be possible to maintain the political power necessary.
Some billionaire in California is trying to do exactly this. I thought we all already knew about it. [https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/)
Yeah, this is what had me thinking about it.
But I donāt think it is much smaller for a start - what could that neighborhood grow to in a decade if it had more room around it to grow?
There are various projects in the works, like https://culdesac.com/ building a car-free neighborhood of 700 apartments in Tempe, Arizona.
I wish we could see more new cities that could experiment with land use paradigms. But it's a hard problem to solve! You need a lot of land, which means a lot of money -- or you need to convince the government to develop some land on national parks or something, which I'm not sure is a good idea and surely isn't politically feasible.
Look at all the vitriol and opposition that's been thrown against the venture capitalists trying to build a new city in agricultural land in Solano County, California, inland from the San Francisco Bay:
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/
Intentional communities exist, but theyāre mostly fairly small. Many are a part of larger towns and cities, or near them, taking advantage of pre-existing infrastructure and services.
Building a utopian city from scratch seems pretty unattainable without some billionaire funding it (and likely still unattainable even then).
Where would the money come from to build the initial city? How would it get utilities? Transportation links to other places? Hospitals, schools, food, fire departments, places for people to work?
The other idea of moving to a place āin declineā is maybe more feasible, but still has major problems. Places that are in economic decline are that way for a reason. Most have little economy, little job opportunity. How would you overcome this?
Most do not have safe livable housing just widely available for a huge influx of residents, how would this be overcome?
There are also already people that call these places home. People that were born and raised there. Your plan is to have a bunch of people from Reddit all go there and tell them how they should run their town to please the Redditors? Drastically increase the demand for housing, the housing prices, and end up displacing the people already there?
Although it sounds nice, there are many difficulties with this idea. The main two being that most people are not able to just uproot their lives and move to another place. Money, job, family and personal connections all tie people down to the region they are in.
The other main difficulty is that "taking over" a city or existing area often does not go well. Local people don't like it and a coalition of outsiders might find they don't like the climate and culture in the new area.
Arguably, some [Silicon Valley billionaires are attempting to do just that outside San Francisco](https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-tech-investors-new-city-housing-35f91416dd7d84ecb03ed08199d87dd5), and the local community they're next to doesn't seem to be game for the plan. Not saying it can't be done, just that wherever it is, it's going to be a heavy lift.
Maybe we could build it somewhere far from carbrains, in the middle of the desert. And we could make it so that you could get to everything by train! In fact just one big train that goes from one end of the city to the other! If everything is right next to such a rail line, then the city can follow the same straight shape, like maybe a giant line city!
Sounds great, let's do it!
I grew up in Columbia and went to Atholton High School there. Hereās some context:
Columbia displaced the rural towns, communities and villages in the area. Atholton as a village was completely torn down. There was also a village near what is now Long Reach that was forcefully displaced and destroyed.
Columbia is nothing but suburban sprawl - very car-centric sprawl centered around a big giant shopping mall. Yes youāre always theoretically within walking distance of a grocery store, but you canāt escape the pedestrian-hostile roads and highways. Because the sprawl is car-centric, thereās basically no density. The mall is in decline, and as white flight fueled Columbiaās height, itās also been fueling its decline as crime rates are rising because itās becoming a place where people donāt actually *want* to live. The poor folks displaced by gentrification in DC are being forced into Columbia as it declines and thereās no sense of community in folks whoāve had their communities systemically and systematically destroyed for decades as the car-centrism of Columbia isolates them away from forming a new community.
The houses were all built cheaply out of toothpicks and are basically all falling apart as well. Thank Rouse for that one. Columbia was easily his most profitable venture, and good lord was it ever a large scale one, but you lose the organic nature that makes towns livable, enjoyable places when you plan them for profit, which in turn eventually kills them as people wish to live somewhere nicer.
I remember the suburban isolation being a major talking point amongst other bored teenagers growing up there, with nowhere to go and nothing to do without money in this community planned for profit.
I lived in Columbia for a couple of years and it is gorgeous. They have a unique tax for homeowners that goes straight into investment of public spaces/parks. Thereās a huge walking trail that connects a lot of the neighborhoods in the area and they seamlessly integrate with the car infrastructure to avoid collisions with pedestrians by going under roads. And thereās a lot of mixed-income housing so you have affordable apartments next to expensive suburbs and small townhomes with grocery stores very well placed throughout. I even used to live next to one and it was amazing being able to just walk to the store and come back with what I needed when I needed it rather than making one huge weekly trip in a car.
Columbia is very pedestrian friendly, but that being said you could not really live there car-free. Itās placed between DC and Baltimore which are huge hubs of employment and thereās no real easy way to get to them without a car. Thereās a MARC train system that connects the two cities but the nearest stations are not walkable. There is a bus system that goes around but Iāve found it to be inconsistent (as with most public transportation). And the largest mall in the area is surrounded by huge parking lots as far as the eye can see (although the bus system does connect directly to the mall.
If youāre curious about learning of more communities like that, look into Greenbelt Maryland which was I believe the first planned community under Rooseveltās New Deal and Eleanor Roosevelt oversaw the plans. It features mixed income housing, pedestrian spaces, local grocery stores, and the best part is that itās directly connected to the DC metro system and the MARC train system to get to Baltimore. But I will say that community has sprawled further than originally planned and while there are pockets of walkability thereās also been a lot of neglect to the community spaces that once allowed for vibrant community engagement. From what I can tell itās kind of been overshadowed lately by developers in favor of investing in the local college town nearby so a lot of Greenbelt could use some more upkeep.
The idea is silly but itās interesting to discuss the size of the sub: itās stagnant. It seems weāve reached peak attendance while Reddit as a whole is growing rapidly.
It might be easier if we all get together and protest, we can get local governments to change their zoning and building laws. We can say it's about housing affordability so we don't piss off the car brains. Everyone can probably get behind housing affordability because it affects everyone... Well maybe not boomer homeowners...
Libertarians did this with the free state project or something, just move to a small town and take it over politically. There's challenges but you don't need millions, dozens can get it done.
This is my thoughts too - though if you had a pedestrian town within 50 miles of a major city, I think a dedicated train would become feasible. There would be enough demand for it by ratio, even if the population is smaller. Japan and Europe have them.
Hey, electric cars are better for the environment! The more there are, the better the environment āso everyone ditch your old car and go electric!Ā
*this sounds stupid as fuck, right?Ā
We all know that this is a consumer ploy aimed at making people feel good about their footprint choices. But regardless of any benefit any electric car might provide, it doesnāt offset the fact that youāve got a perfectly good car that just needs some adjustments to make a run more efficiently. Sure itās a pain in the ass, butā¦
Sticking with what you have and tweaking it is a far better solution than the waste that would be created starting from scratch.
*sorry to use the car analogy, but I figured it would hit home easily.
āBtw, I assume youāre proposition is purely in the spirit of humor, as itās funny ;) Ā
What % of this sub is American? It seems way more European than most of the ones I'm in.
A nationality pol would be nice
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/s/gGZIthg26E
Wow only 25 from Asia so far but then saw the time here that it's 4 am š hopefully it picks up in a few more hours.
Most people live in Asia, however almost none of us use Reddit. This sub in generally not that aware of stuff that goes on in Asia, despite the continent having some of the best and worst urbanism in the world.
How is there only 141 Australians here??? What is this?
Surprised so little in Oceania considering how car obsessed Australia, and to a lesser degree New Zealand are
[Here it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/s/9gqFb3pWyt)
I think half the North Americans are also from Toronto, not the US.
And some of us from Mexico
I was gonna say, the three biggest cities in NA are all in Mexico iirc (eta not true because I was given metro area totals when I visited, but they do have 3 in the top 10)! And CDMX wayyyyyy dwarfs the rest.
How bout them blue jays eh?
Just letting you know, Iām American and I totally support this cause. Iām actually in Europe right now and having a blast. Tomorrow is a lesson for my dad to use google maps to take the train or bus around the city.
just a tip, there can be well designed regional apps that work better than finding your way with google. I know Vienna for example didnt share their public transport data with google for the longest time.
Pretty sure we would find other kind of āgroupsā like higher education, specific industries and so on. Would make up for a weird city for sure not covering all facets of normal society, would be interesting to see what comes out
Well, I can tell you there'd at least be a good number of construction workers. It's a 50-50 shot, but half of every one I work with, and talk to about things like this, mostly or fully agree, so it could be more well rounded than you'd initially suspect
That's the thinking. You get a dedicated community to start the seed, and plenty more would join in. Most of the people I know are not on Reddit - or they don't make that public - but a large percentage want to live in a "European walkable town". I think many would join in once it reached investment level planning.
Looking at the poll post, about 48%, another 40 ish in Europe, and the remaining 2 in other continents
That's just North America though, I mean the 3(?) biggest cities on this continent are all in Mexico.
Mexico City is number one, but the USA holds spots 2, 3, 5, and 6 out of the top 10 Canada holds 4 and 9 Mexico 1, 8, and 10, and Cuba 7 somehow with Havana So you're half right, 3 of the biggest cities are in Mexico, not the 3 biggest cities though.
Ahhhh when they told us population sizes for the cities in Mexico they included the metro areas. Thanks for correcting. Also wow I had no idea Havana was that big!
Havana is 1/5 of Cuba's entire population, it's a good city.
What about Europeans living in America? š
It doesnāt have to be just this sub - there are many communities looking for the same lifestyle, and I am sure there will be e people who have never been on Reddit who would enjoy living in a small town urban environment as well.
Sure, but it's the original post where you specifically mention this sub I'm responding to.
Bring the Europeans and all other internationals to America. We are a new nation of fuckcars.
Bye family and friends! Iām off to live with some strangers from Reddit šš¾
Hey, it worked for the Galt's Gulch people... right?
Ah yes, where gold was the currency, the only currency with āinherent value.ā
Wtf is that what they say in that book? Itās been years since I read it.
Haha yeah in Atlas Shrugged. Even my impressionable 21yo self thought that was dumb as hell.
I finally looked into the book, after having read about it so often, what an absurd piece of work. Is this mandatory reading in the US school system?
Best time of my life!
Weāre gonna build a city together!
With blackjack, and hookers!
On trains!
Can our theme song be āWe Built This City,ā by Starship? (As featured in āThe Muppetsā 2011 film)
Bring'em! The more, the merrier.
Man, you're actually able to live around where your family is? It seems really rare these days, at least among my friends, that people live where their families are. Everyone seems torn apart and thrown around the country (USA) because of jobs and housing forcing people out of the places they grew up in.
Often works quite well in Germany
Without any jobs to speak of and we have to fund all the infrastructure and homes from scratch - hopefully all of us are worth 5 mil + each!
It might just be a collection of covered wagons for awhile, till we get our hands dirty. I'm sure we can make the world's first mid-rise log cabin.
> It might just be a collection of covered wagons for awhile The modern equivalent would be trailers. But I suppose "let's all go live in a trailer park!" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Maybe your family and friends are the redditors you've met alomg the way?
Also people have such idealized ideas of capitalism. Getting a new job is very difficult for me. I canāt just leave my city. Iāll be out of a job. Not everyone here is some 6digit digital nomad who can work from anywhere. Cities arenāt centrally planned but serve an economic need. NYC and Chicago for their waterway and rail at the turn of the century and before, etc. you canāt just plop one down anywhere. Also wait until people realize the crony capitalism that is built into our system. Not only laws that dictate car culture on the state level but also the investors youāll need to build everything and theyāll have some strong thoughts on promoting car culture as well. The best thing to do is slowly reform your local community. Add bike lanes. Advocate for better bus service. Safer roads. Etc.
"6 digit digital nomad" fuck, there's a song title, no joke
> Cities arenāt centrally planned but serve an economic need. NYC and Chicago for their waterway and rail at the turn of the century and before, etc. you canāt just plop one down anywhere. Cities are centrally planned to realize that economic need. Europeans didn't just start living in NYC, the Dutch government bought the rights to Manhattan and arranged transport for hundreds of people to settle there. That's central planning. And most cities that exist now are built to serve economic needs that no longer apply. Places like Bristol and Manchester chug along despite having lost the reason for their explosive growth. And economic centers like the New York or London Stock Exchange are entirely unbound from physical needs. Or more recently, work from home has obsoleted the office spaces that take up extremely valuable real estate in many modern cities, and increasing automation from AI would free up more money and labor if the profits were fairly distributed. Between a dense carfree design, a lack of office spaces to make working from home as efficient as possible, and a library economy, a city built from scratch would have some major economic advantages over most cities built in the past 100 years even if it were placed in the middle of nowhere. Its economic niche would be remote office labor, and by splitting the money saved on cars and offices with customers the companies there could offer cheaper labor than existing cities. This is already sort of happening with twitch streamers and other content creators moving to Texas because of short-sighted appreciation of low taxes and because their only location need is the time zone and proximity to one another.
This but unironically since I have no friends or family to speak of.
Imagine something like "The villages" in Florida, but for urbanists. There would be trolley cars everywhere and mixed used housing and bike lanes.
It probably could be done if you had enough people willing to do it. But you wouldn't be able to start with trolley cars since that would be pretty expensive. You likely could pool enough resources to make something with bikes and micromobility as the primary mode of transit though.
With 4000 people, you wouldn't need anything faster than walking. If you had the population density of NYC, the whole city would only be 750 feet/250 meters across. With a population density of Philadelphia, it would under half a mile/1 km.
The villages only works because itās funded by social security, pensions, and 401ks. Not do they need to be near their jobs because they donāt work. Itās a bit of an exception too. These people were coming to Florida anyway for retirement. The villages captures them and offers value in a large community. These people were going there anyway. This is why intentional communities for working people is hard to pull off. Weāre tied to work and arenāt getting retirement checks.
I hope there's a way to do it. Shit, I just want someone to recreate Lisbon, Portugal in the US. I wish one of these giga billionaires would fund it.
It's hard to separate accumulation of capital from the accumulation of political power. The 1921 NEP tried to address it, but ultimately failed. One of the founding principles for a YIMBY community would have to be fair land taxation, oriented toward encouraging sensible land use, and the broadest possible range of people who have a stakehold in the future of the city, including newcomers. To that end, we'll need to make a break with the history of every other city, and allow no special arrangements for the founding generation, and no grandfathering of property assessments. It would have to be radically fair. We can create our own Overton window of a blend of YIMBY and Georgist principles, with lots of fractious debate within it.
Please for the love of god tell me you aren't seriously suggesting a Reddit Island 3.0 \[Bikes Edition\]. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please google Reddit Island (it is hilarious). There's a few videos on it and it was wild. TLDR: Redditors with zero resources pitched the idea of having a bunch of Redditors pitch in for an island. There were a few attempts at it, and all ended horribly (I believe one ended with a large number of the "Islanders" getting scammed for thousands by an "Island Seller").
well i won't be sending any of you money. but i will buy land/property in a particular area if they project makes sense.
So your first problem is that this subreddit is very international and Americans are actually the minority here if I remember correctly. Then you get into a vast array of other limiting factors--almost nobody here has the assets to just uproot and move to some random place and invest a large amount of capital into a new home and helping transform the infrastructure and so on. Most people also aren't going to have remote jobs or the ability to retire immediately or whatever. Then you get into family connections and so on. I doubt you could get even 1% of this subreddit (around 4,000 people, or the population of a typical small town) in on such a plan. And even if you could get that number of people involved, then you start getting into the logistical/political issues of herding all those cats into one place. And at that number, it would definitely have to be concentrated in one place to be able to have a meaningful community with enough amenities for daily life and so on.
Nah I've been on r/salary and everyone on Reddit apparently makes $250k a year, but four years ago they made $30k/yr. So with that kind of upward mobility it should be no problem securing financing. /s
The salaries people earn on a subreddit dedicated to discussing salaries is abnormally high? How unexpected!
Next you're gonna tell me some people on the Internet might even be exaggerating their earnings...
You can't lie on the internet, that's not allowed. Or so my supermodel wife tells me.
Don't forget that their $250k/yr barely even covers rent and they are literally living in third-world poverty! The rest of us may need to help them out, even. /s
Perhaps not everyone in this sub would join, but not everyone that would join would be from this sub. Lots of people are interested in walkable cities without ever even visiting reddit once.
Wow if 4,000 people came together and made a walkable town! It would be worth it to borrow money to move there, in view of how much you would save by freeing yourself from car dependency. Letās do it somewhere nice where land is cheap. We can live in Stardew Valley if we want it! (please!)
Lots of small towns *are* decently walkable, especially if they were established before the dominance of cars, even in the United States. Within city limits they don't even need any public transportation infrastructure if it's just built densely enough, since everything will be in walking distance by virtue of its small size. But populations of that size have trouble supporting an economy without either sending workers to bigger cities or bringing in outside consumers (e.g. tourism), so the big logistical hurdle there is figuring out how to connect that small town to the rest of the world, without cars. 4,000 people that are truly invested in the goal would be one of the most likely to be able to get a shuttle bus going, but rail connection will require the cooperation at the state and federal level
I'll also point out that there are already places kind of like this in the US--Catalina Island off the coast from LA and Mackinac Island in Michigan both ban cars. Of course, they are tiny expensive resort towns and you have to take a ferry to get to the mainland and access any kind of "normal" amenities. Alternatively, there are larger towns/cities with nice pedestrianized areas in their downtowns where you can get away from the cars, like Boulder, Colorado; Charlottesville, Virginia; Burlington, Vermont; or Salem, Massachusetts. Theoretically, you can live a block or two off these cities' pedestrian malls/zones and rarely interact with cars. It's a fun idea but I'm not sure it's easier/more practical than just taking advantage of an existing walkable town.
Sure I know someone who lives in Salem, a quarter mile from downtown and doesn't have a car. The issue is, that urban walkable core outside of few places is not expanding. It's still car centric.
Why not move to a small town and get active in local politics. 4000 people could sway the vote, and you can upgrade a small town that already has basic infrastructure.
I think the best bet is probably a West Virginian city that had its boom years pre-automobile so that it's built up for walkability (greatly helped by the geography of West Virginia) and has seen massive depopulation in the last few decades so it's built for a much larger and more populous city and the empty structures haven't yet gone completely to shit. That way you aren't displacing a bunch of people and you also aren't destroying a bunch of nature by building on greenfield construction. Bonuses are that there is often existing rail infrastructure, possibly [some of it still functioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Amtrak_stations_in_West_Virginia) like with the Cardinal. West Virginia is also quite pretty in a lot of spots and has rather moderate climate.
Thatās exactly what I was thinking. You can start by hitting the ground running.
Pittsburgh is basically a WV city that is affordable and at the edge of what makes sense for āeast coastā trains.
There are real life cities with pretty good walkability. Call me crazy but I'd rather find a way to move to Amsterdam, Paris, or New York than gamble my future on a planned community made by a bunch of redditors.
I would rather a small city. I like smaller cities with a lot of nature nearer. Paris sized cities are expensive and constraining. Look at the community garden in New Orleans city park getting demolished for yet another road because of a tiny bit of traffic in the neighborhood. And the land value I. The city is far too prohibitive to get another community garden of that size anywhere. And I think it will be easier politically to hold over the course of decades. I think in major cities, you will see the 1%s looking to get control and change for quick profits.
There are walkable smaller cities, too. They're hard to move to because either or both the cost of living is too high or the economic opportunities are too low, and I don't know how a planned city would fix those problems
Come to Oslo. Decent infrastructure and surrounded by forests.
the most walkable city in america is the walmart city lol
I have a bridge to sell you
There are lots of small walkable cities as well. But that's not really the point - the point is that this kind of utopian master planned community ends in tears 100 times out of 100. Moving to a real city that's further along the "maybe cars shouldn't be the default for everything" curve is a far better option than one that's going to descend into chaos and infighting the first time someone asks if a particular route needs a tram line or if an electric bus is a better option.
Or even just move to a walkable part of a nearby city and then push local leaders to put in more bike lanes and transit options as well as allow more high density developments.
Well I don't live in America for a start. And I have no desire to either.
Sorry. This isn't optional. Our international ~~kidnapping~~recruitment team will be by to pick you up shortly.
USA! USA!
I live in America, but I understand why non-Americans on this sub don't want to move here. After all, the fact that we don't have universal healthcare is a major deal breaker for lots of people. The horror stories of people going bankrupt over medical bills are heartbreaking.
And who the hell wants their kid shot at school. Nobody else worries about that.
Yeah, lack of public healthcare and the issues around gun violence are the two main reasons I wouldn't want to live in the US.
Not to mention the risk of Project 2025 coming to fruition. I don't want to move somewhere where one of the major parties is making plans to kill me.
The Network State concept: organize online, eventually buy land together. The Free State Project was a libertarian project that did this with New Hampshire, it had mild success but they did it. Edit: Mild success as in they had \~6000 of their 20,000 person goal make the move. Not a comment on the other ideological concerns. Oddly enough, the best target might be a red state like Wyoming. They passed a number of pro-housing laws from the angle of pro-property rights. And "doing what you want with your land" is exactly the freedom a car-free town would want.
I have literally said for years I want to start a car free city in Wyoming for cheap land and to flip some senate seats.
The free state project has not been successful, only maybe in that one town that the lady got attacked by a bear. the free state project is a joke in the state of NH lol
Yeah, I wasn't really commenting on how successful or not it was, but just that the idea of moving a bunch of politically aligned folks to an area to reshape it has been thought of and attempted before. There's probably a ton to learned from their attempt, but I haven't done a deep dive on it.
I thank you for the example, but I think a town based more on sustainable infrastructure is inherently more likely to succeed than a town based on political ideology. It takes all kinds to have a town. But thank you for the great example of a network affect building a town. I think that was your intention, and it was well received.
> I think a town based more on sustainable infrastructure is inherently more likely to succeed than a town based on political ideology Sustainable infrastructure isn't apolitical
Your whole post is based on a political ideology
The book 'A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear' is worth a read.
Calling the Free State Project in New Hampshire a "mild success" is a bit of a stretch: >The changes they voted in included a 30% reduction in the town's already-small budget,[27] denying funding to the county's senior-citizens council.[26] The libertarian newcomers additionally increased the city's costs by filing lawsuits against it in an attempt to set legal precedents.[27] The project has been associated with an increase in the number and aggressiveness of black bears in town, including entering homes, mauling people, and eating pets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project#History
Did you read the recent Atlantic Monthly article on this? Many of the people are crypto people but they interviewed an urban planner too. I am ready to move!
This one? [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/silicon-valley-billionaires-building-cities/677173/](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/silicon-valley-billionaires-building-cities/677173/)
Half of the sub probably lives in a city with good transit / bike infrastructure. Itās my case for example
Most of whom will be in the 45% who aren't in North America.
Don't expect me to move from the Netherlands to the States where I *might* find a community where I could live without a driver's license.
Yeah the Netherlands is the best when it comes to biking.Ā How hard is it to become a citizen of the Netherlands.
It sounds crazy, but honestly there are enough people who want to live car-free that itās surprising such a thing doesnāt exist yet.
I think people who want it badly enough can just move to NYC, Chicago and the like.
The problem is that we are all already beautifully car free in our existing lovely cities. Chicago, New York, DC, Pittsburgh, Philly, whatever. And once you live there you can advocate for more housing so we can make space for even more car free friends
Yeah, plenty of cities have been built or seen this scale population growth over the last few decades. My town will have tripled in 11 years if it stays on course of the last 8.
This will turn out a great CULT
Well you got 27 upvotes for this, so that's a start. If you can convert 10% of those upvotes to citizens you have 2.7 citizens so far!
I have 2.7 people in my family, so I have twice that, actually
Your problem is, I don't want to live in the USA.
This reminds of a City Nerd video suggesting that all his followers should just move Wyoming and just vote in all pro urbanism candidates and change all their zoning laws. I think that's more doable than starting a brand new city from scratch.
Yeah good luck with that one
You can bitch about things and do nothing or look for solutions.Ā Who do you want to be.Ā Ā
Thereās looking for solutions and then thereās overconfidently talking out your ass about things you donāt understand. āPeople would figure out what they needed to do to move their jobs or work.ā Yeah, just a couple insignificant details to iron out š
Well, this isn't a solution that I want at all. I'm not "doing nothing," I'd just rather put the work into reducing my own car dependency in my own hometown
I have like 10k to my name. I trust you'll build a house there for me for that money. Thx
Check out the California Forever project, a bunch of land is being acquired outside the Bay area to be developed as a car free community
Thatās exactly it. Thanks for the tip. Iāll dig further
Iām fucking in. But thereās a lot to consider. For starters, would like somewhere we can bike year-round, and donāt need to import water to make plants grow.
Yeah, I live in Louisiana - I bike year round and donāt need water, for sure. Problem is that it is a southern state, so very poor infrastructure and very spread out. State level government would not be very supportive in most cases, but possible in some southern states like Georgia, possibly
I often think about how if we could look to things like Rajneeshpuram on what not to do, then we could accomplish so much more. Basically just don't become a cult and we're good.
Ultimately it's unworkable to build a city from scratch. Instead of expecting someone else to build it for us (like Culdesac Tempe in Phoenix) check out this Co-op neighborhood in Berlin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2GhxK3DUg0 The people organizing it received significant opposition from the local government, but apparently not from the regional bureaucracy.
Reddit island 2.0
Actually 3.0 (Reddit Island was tried twice, the second time was funnier though). There is no way that there are more than 1000 people from this sub that are A) US Citizens/residents B) Not minors C) Working in a position where this would be feasible D) Financially capable of taking this risk E) Lonely enough to move away from all of your friends and family F) New enough to Reddit that they haven't heard of Reddit Island and G) Dumb enough to actually believe a bunch of randoms on the internet from a subreddit focused on public transit, walkable infrastructure, and hating cars (which is fair, cars suck) would have enough people that fit points A-F and have the necessary skills to start and operate a town (it takes a WHOLE lot of moving parts).
Throw in a H) willing to move to one of the poorest reddest states for cheap land.
No but seriously, why does Reddit keep doing this? It happens so much!
Lol another American thinking we're all from the US of A
Wait you mean we're not? Last I checked I'm from America Lite (Canada)
Less than half of reddit users actually are from the USA, even if you include Canada.
I was joking. Obviously most of the world is in Asia/Europe and so that'd be reflected online too.
1. We arenāt all American 2. Most of us are poor 3. Just because we hate car infrastructure doesnāt mean we want to uproot our entire lives
I feel like this city already exists and its called "most cities in the netherlands"
Ah yes, because everyone is American
Well where we going to build it ? Like whic county ?
Finding a location that everyone in the sub could legally live and work in would certainly be an undertaking. America is definitely not going to be it.
I think America has the best chance for a first city to prove the concept - plenty of land, big pop, and the most car cultured of industrialized nations. If it works here, it should work anywhere. Australia would prove the concept well too?
because more than half of Reddit ain't American, and the % is probably higher for this sub, you Americans are a minority
Check out Cul De Sac in Tempe Arizona, itās a car free walkable neighborhood build within the last two years. Itās next to a high speed rail.
1. not everyone is american 2. what % of people would be willing to move 3. what % of this sub is actually regularly lurking or active 4. they already tried reddit island 5. you do know how expensive that is right
we should take over minneapolis, cheapest city that's already in a good direction, has shit weather for walkability so it'll be even better proof of concept, not too enormous so a few thousand people would shift votes at least somewhat, blue state will help greatly
We could have done Detroit circa 2010, lol. That would have been going back to where car based infrastructure all began in the us
I grew up in Columbia, MD and I judge most places by the idyllic bar it set for me as a child - I could walk, by myself, to any number of places using paths, most of them through undeveloped/never to be developed land. I don't like what I've seen of Columbia these days, but it was amazing to grow up there. That said, I agree with a lot of folks here that I'd rather just make existing cities more micro-mobility friendly. NYC should be much better than it is, but our govt officials keep taking a lazy approach to cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. Trying to build something from scratch is a fool's errand.
If we're allowing a time to get the ball rolling, I am actually working on a larger scope project than the one you're suggesting. It's not as dedicated to specifically city building, but it is a project that will eventually shape the area it takes root. I won't say too much detail on it, as it's a lot and only in early steps, but it's essentially a community land trust but for an entire county, with aspects of cultural preservation and job development
Yeah, this concept would be years in the making, I think. You would just need years getting the concept out there and getting people to sign on.
Of all the unrealistic ideas i've come across on the internet this is one of them
Living in a city built and solely inhabited by redditors... The devil himself could not come up with a punishment more vile.
Because uprooting your entire life is a slightly higher level of commitment than subscribing to a subreddit?
Basic reality? Like, the sheer amount of work required to build a city and the money and the land and the location... And then everyone would need to move there and lose their jobs... > But I think you could get a 250k city from all the communities interested in this lifestyle within 4 years. You might be able, with all the efforts of everyone here combined, be able to get a paved bike path in the desert. Started.
One thing that would stop it would be the non-Americans of this community not wanting to immigrate to the US lol.
Just move to a beautiful neighborhood in Chicago and vote for more housing! No need to start from scratch
I would love to live in Chicago; it is my favorite city, but I donāt think it will be possible to have a fully bike centric life there safely. And I donāt think it would ever be possible to maintain the political power necessary.
There... are not a million people living in Columbia, Maryland.
Can I be the mayor?
I'm in, how do we start?
It has to be a flyover state they have land enough to develop
Could we have co housing? And a public research center?
Some billionaire in California is trying to do exactly this. I thought we all already knew about it. [https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/)
I didnāt, but someone else mentioned it too - thansk
Kinda reminds me of this little āneighborhoodā in Arizona. https://culdesac.com Obviously a way smaller scale but similar idea
Yeah, this is what had me thinking about it. But I donāt think it is much smaller for a start - what could that neighborhood grow to in a decade if it had more room around it to grow?
There are various projects in the works, like https://culdesac.com/ building a car-free neighborhood of 700 apartments in Tempe, Arizona. I wish we could see more new cities that could experiment with land use paradigms. But it's a hard problem to solve! You need a lot of land, which means a lot of money -- or you need to convince the government to develop some land on national parks or something, which I'm not sure is a good idea and surely isn't politically feasible. Look at all the vitriol and opposition that's been thrown against the venture capitalists trying to build a new city in agricultural land in Solano County, California, inland from the San Francisco Bay: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/new-calfiornia-forever-city-map/3425858/
Intentional communities exist, but theyāre mostly fairly small. Many are a part of larger towns and cities, or near them, taking advantage of pre-existing infrastructure and services. Building a utopian city from scratch seems pretty unattainable without some billionaire funding it (and likely still unattainable even then). Where would the money come from to build the initial city? How would it get utilities? Transportation links to other places? Hospitals, schools, food, fire departments, places for people to work? The other idea of moving to a place āin declineā is maybe more feasible, but still has major problems. Places that are in economic decline are that way for a reason. Most have little economy, little job opportunity. How would you overcome this? Most do not have safe livable housing just widely available for a huge influx of residents, how would this be overcome? There are also already people that call these places home. People that were born and raised there. Your plan is to have a bunch of people from Reddit all go there and tell them how they should run their town to please the Redditors? Drastically increase the demand for housing, the housing prices, and end up displacing the people already there?
what does it take to build a city michael, half a million subreddit subscribers?
Although it sounds nice, there are many difficulties with this idea. The main two being that most people are not able to just uproot their lives and move to another place. Money, job, family and personal connections all tie people down to the region they are in. The other main difficulty is that "taking over" a city or existing area often does not go well. Local people don't like it and a coalition of outsiders might find they don't like the climate and culture in the new area.
Let's start a real estate investment fund
Arguably, some [Silicon Valley billionaires are attempting to do just that outside San Francisco](https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-tech-investors-new-city-housing-35f91416dd7d84ecb03ed08199d87dd5), and the local community they're next to doesn't seem to be game for the plan. Not saying it can't be done, just that wherever it is, it's going to be a heavy lift.
Maybe we could build it somewhere far from carbrains, in the middle of the desert. And we could make it so that you could get to everything by train! In fact just one big train that goes from one end of the city to the other! If everything is right next to such a rail line, then the city can follow the same straight shape, like maybe a giant line city! Sounds great, let's do it!
I grew up in Columbia and went to Atholton High School there. Hereās some context: Columbia displaced the rural towns, communities and villages in the area. Atholton as a village was completely torn down. There was also a village near what is now Long Reach that was forcefully displaced and destroyed. Columbia is nothing but suburban sprawl - very car-centric sprawl centered around a big giant shopping mall. Yes youāre always theoretically within walking distance of a grocery store, but you canāt escape the pedestrian-hostile roads and highways. Because the sprawl is car-centric, thereās basically no density. The mall is in decline, and as white flight fueled Columbiaās height, itās also been fueling its decline as crime rates are rising because itās becoming a place where people donāt actually *want* to live. The poor folks displaced by gentrification in DC are being forced into Columbia as it declines and thereās no sense of community in folks whoāve had their communities systemically and systematically destroyed for decades as the car-centrism of Columbia isolates them away from forming a new community. The houses were all built cheaply out of toothpicks and are basically all falling apart as well. Thank Rouse for that one. Columbia was easily his most profitable venture, and good lord was it ever a large scale one, but you lose the organic nature that makes towns livable, enjoyable places when you plan them for profit, which in turn eventually kills them as people wish to live somewhere nicer. I remember the suburban isolation being a major talking point amongst other bored teenagers growing up there, with nowhere to go and nothing to do without money in this community planned for profit.
For the same reason why calling for a general strike is not a viable political strategy.
Just move to amsterdam
I lived in Columbia for a couple of years and it is gorgeous. They have a unique tax for homeowners that goes straight into investment of public spaces/parks. Thereās a huge walking trail that connects a lot of the neighborhoods in the area and they seamlessly integrate with the car infrastructure to avoid collisions with pedestrians by going under roads. And thereās a lot of mixed-income housing so you have affordable apartments next to expensive suburbs and small townhomes with grocery stores very well placed throughout. I even used to live next to one and it was amazing being able to just walk to the store and come back with what I needed when I needed it rather than making one huge weekly trip in a car. Columbia is very pedestrian friendly, but that being said you could not really live there car-free. Itās placed between DC and Baltimore which are huge hubs of employment and thereās no real easy way to get to them without a car. Thereās a MARC train system that connects the two cities but the nearest stations are not walkable. There is a bus system that goes around but Iāve found it to be inconsistent (as with most public transportation). And the largest mall in the area is surrounded by huge parking lots as far as the eye can see (although the bus system does connect directly to the mall. If youāre curious about learning of more communities like that, look into Greenbelt Maryland which was I believe the first planned community under Rooseveltās New Deal and Eleanor Roosevelt oversaw the plans. It features mixed income housing, pedestrian spaces, local grocery stores, and the best part is that itās directly connected to the DC metro system and the MARC train system to get to Baltimore. But I will say that community has sprawled further than originally planned and while there are pockets of walkability thereās also been a lot of neglect to the community spaces that once allowed for vibrant community engagement. From what I can tell itās kind of been overshadowed lately by developers in favor of investing in the local college town nearby so a lot of Greenbelt could use some more upkeep.
As long as thereās plenty of parking
The idea is silly but itās interesting to discuss the size of the sub: itās stagnant. It seems weāve reached peak attendance while Reddit as a whole is growing rapidly.
Reddit is growing? I understood it had stagnanted
What even is this post
Thanks for the critical feedback. This will help me to refine the idea!
It might be easier if we all get together and protest, we can get local governments to change their zoning and building laws. We can say it's about housing affordability so we don't piss off the car brains. Everyone can probably get behind housing affordability because it affects everyone... Well maybe not boomer homeowners...
Libertarians did this with the free state project or something, just move to a small town and take it over politically. There's challenges but you don't need millions, dozens can get it done.
Didnāt they try this in West Virginia or something until they got chased out of town by bears?
New Hampshire, and they were being oppressed by bear proof garbage cans.
Why build a city when we could work in our local towns to improve 50 cities?
Reddit island flashbacks
Money
because there is no reason, I would choose to live in the USA. Like have you seen your Presidential race? screw that,
I'd be ok with a suburb in the US. It'd just need to be within striking distance of a train or metro stop.
This is my thoughts too - though if you had a pedestrian town within 50 miles of a major city, I think a dedicated train would become feasible. There would be enough demand for it by ratio, even if the population is smaller. Japan and Europe have them.
I would move with you guys. Even planned projects can succeed, when done right! But I would imagine this in Europe.
Reddit Island all over again, but with commies
I'm getting heavy "Reddit Island" vibes from this post.
There is probably nothing that could convince me to come and live in your backward, crackpot country.
American redditors stop assuming the entire internet is just made up of Americans challenge: impossible
Y'all aren't serious ššš what a weird thing to say! "A sub has a lot of people in it, why don't we just build a city"
Yeah well personnaly I wouldn't want to live in the U.S at all so...
How many actually active users?
Hey, electric cars are better for the environment! The more there are, the better the environment āso everyone ditch your old car and go electric!Ā *this sounds stupid as fuck, right?Ā We all know that this is a consumer ploy aimed at making people feel good about their footprint choices. But regardless of any benefit any electric car might provide, it doesnāt offset the fact that youāve got a perfectly good car that just needs some adjustments to make a run more efficiently. Sure itās a pain in the ass, butā¦ Sticking with what you have and tweaking it is a far better solution than the waste that would be created starting from scratch. *sorry to use the car analogy, but I figured it would hit home easily. āBtw, I assume youāre proposition is purely in the spirit of humor, as itās funny ;) Ā
What about a mInecraft city
Terrarian would be way cheaper. That third dimension is where all the costs come in.