1082
Obvious choice
(thelemmy.club)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
1082 points (92.9% liked)
Solarpunk
8851 readers
11 users here now
The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
How about we get that wish in, say, 10 or 20 years instead of your strawman scenario? Transforming cities to be walkable/bikable does not take that long, if you're serious about it.
It's not a matter of who's serious or not, it's a matter of what is more attainable right now. Small steps are more achievable than massive ones. Public transportation and walkable cities are already a topic that capitalism has been fighting forever, and the amount of infrastructure that would need to change is massive. It would interrupt daily lives, close roads, probably close businesses at LEAST temporarily, and while those of us who support it would understand it's a means to an end, there is absolutely no way to get everyone on board right now. We DO have car parks right now, on private property where the companies that own them likely have the cash to spare for contractors to build solar panels. We'd have some areas of parking lots coned off while they build, and it would be a huge improvement that will be much easier to attain than the kind of overhaul needed to transform cities.
Personal cars are going to be here for way longer than 20 years, but 20 years is still long enough to build a lot of solar panels, so the same questions still arise. What will your answer be?
Tops of buildings, over canals, may be even over roads and rail.
It isn't that far out of reach that a car park gets covered in solar panels, then the next developer reuses them when redeveloping the site for denser development.
You forget that people live also outside of cities. If you live in a town away from any city you need a car.
No I didn't. First of all, forgetting and disregarding aren't the same thing.
Second, living in a small town isn't an excuse. Small towns are inherently walkable (due to being, ya know, small) unless you somehow manage to design them spectacularly wrong. And contrary to American belief, it is actually possible to provide rail transit to them: the US itself used to do it 100 years ago, and Japan still does.
In Spain, where I live, there are town (<1500 people) that have the closest supermarket art 25 km of they are lucky. And no bus or 2 in the day with the schedule for the kids.
First of all, how close is the closest non-super market? I mean, I could say "omg I've got to drive 20 miles to get to the nearest Costco" but that doesn't give me an excuse to pretend the Lidl in walking distance doesn't exist.
Second, even if there really isn't any way to get groceries without driving 25 km, just because some particular town is designed stupidly and lacks necessary services locally now, doesn't mean it has to be that way in the future. It's somebody's fuck-up that needs to be fixed, not an immutable natural law inherent to how small towns work.
You haven't lived in a small town, right?