this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Why hundreds of years? American and Canadian cities became car-dependent sprawls in the span of a few decades. A concerted effort to redesign them would not of course have results in months, but 10-20 years are enough to completely transform them.
Also, when we are talking "redesigning", don't imagine SimCity like buldozing and rebuilding. It can start with doing away with zoning regulations mandating single family homes everywhere, doing away with strict commercial/residential zoning, doing away with parking minimums and allowing people to sell off parking lots for development. Then couple this kind of libertarian-style deregulation, with socialistic-like public investment on public transit and amenities (that should be much cheaper for denser neighbourhoods). In the US and Canada, good public transit will probably mean trams and trolleys, or (sigh) buses. Finally, establish norms that require good cycling infrastructure on any new road being built and any old road being repaved. It won't be too long for change to happen.
Finally, one more thing: E-bikes and e-cargo-bikes, along with quick infrastructure fixes (e.g., blocking off some roads or blocking off one direction in stroads with islands to make them transit and bike-only) are a much much better stop-gap solution than electric cars. The vast majority of car trips are with only a single person. Why haul a few tonnes of steel and plastic around? Instead, ebikes need much smaller batteries, and cost only a fraction of the cost. They are fast, and comfortable and can cover larger distances and you don't need to be sweaty when you get there.
The deeper I look at them the more insane cars actually seem. I understand the usage of freight trucks and things like that but cars are genuinely wasteful in most senses.
In cities personal cars are terrible.
In rural areas they are vital.
Agreed but, not always. Not every rural town in the world implies isolated homes. Besides if you look at it more as a principle and less of a rule, as town grows you invest in adding public transportation as needed. But yes the more rural a place is the more car dependent it's going to be, but that's not that bad, most rural places also have much less population so it also has a much smaller impact.
The problem is that the current trends reflect what people have wanted, if you want a change in the system then you need a clear cut plan, not just deregulation.
It's not as if there are no people who have thought deeply of this. For example: https://www.strongtowns.org/